THREE:PREFACE
FORE:Historians often speak as if philosophy took an entirely fresh start at different epochs of its existence. One such break is variously associated with Descartes, or Bacon, or some one of their Italian predecessors. In like manner, the introduction of Christianity, coupled with the closing of the Athenian schools by Justinian, is considered, as once was the suppression of the West-Roman Caesarate by Odoacer, to mark the beginning of a new rgime. But there can be no more a real break in the continuity of intellectual than in the continuity of political history, beyond what sleep or inactivity may simulate in the life of the organic aggregate no less than in the life of the organic individual. In each instance, the thread is taken up where it was dropped. If the rest of the world has been advancing meanwhile, new tendencies will come into play, but only by first attaching themselves to older lines of movement. Sometimes, again, what seems to be a revolution is, in truth, the revival or liberation of an earlier movement, through the decay or destruction of beliefs364 which have hitherto checked its growth. Thus the systems of Plato and Aristotle, after carrying all before them for a brief period, were found unsuitable, from their vast comprehension and high spirituality, to the undeveloped consciousness of their age, and were replaced by popularised versions of the sceptical or naturalistic philosophies which they had endeavoured to suppress. And when these were at length left behind by the forward movement of the human mind, speculative reformers spontaneously reverted to the two great Socratic thinkers for a better solution of the problems in debate. After many abortive efforts, a teacher appeared possessing sufficient genius to fuse their principles into a seemingly coherent and comprehensive whole. By combining the Platonic and Aristotelian spiritualism with a dynamic element borrowed from Stoicism, Plotinus did for an age of intellectual decadence what his models had done in vain for an age of intellectual growth. The relation in which he stood to Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Scepticism, reproduced the relation in which they stood to the various physical and sophistic schools of their time; but the silent experience of six centuries won for him a much more enduring success.Near each staircase stood a blackboard on which the Germans had written that to go upstairs was prohibited under penalty of death. The Head explained that the Germans alleged that light signals had been given from the top storey.
At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga.
FORE:CHAPTER I. PLANS OF STUDYING.
At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga.
THREE: On this principle the heavens and Nature hang. This is that best life which we possess during a brief period only, for there it is so always, which with us is impossible. And its activity is pure pleasure; wherefore waking, feeling, and thinking, are the most pleasurable states, on account of which hope and memory exist.... And of all activities theorising is the most delightful and the best, so that if God always has such happiness as we have in our highest moments, it is wonderful, and still more wonderful if he has more.191
FORE:The great religious movement of the sixth and fifth centurieschiefly represented for us by the names of Pythagoras, Aeschylus, and Pindarwould in all probability have entirely won over the educated classes, and given definiteness to the half-articulate utterances of popular tradition, had it not been arrested prematurely by the development of physical236 speculation. We showed in the first chapter that Greek philosophy in its earliest stages was entirely materialistic. It differed, indeed, from modern materialism in holding that the soul, or seat of conscious life, is an entity distinct from the body; but the distinction was one between a grosser and a finer matter, or else between a simpler and a more complex arrangement of the same matter, not between an extended and an indivisible substance. Whatever theories, then, were entertained with respect to the one would inevitably come to be entertained also with respect to the other. Now, with the exception of the Eleates, who denied the reality of change and separation altogether, every school agreed in teaching that all particular bodies are formed either by differentiation or by decomposition and recomposition out of the same primordial elements. From this it followed, as a natural consequence, that, although the whole mass of matter was eternal, each particular aggregate of matter must perish in order to release the elements required for the formation of new aggregates. It is obvious that, assuming the soul to be material, its immortality was irreconcilable with such a doctrine as this. A combination of four elements and two conflicting forces, such as Empedocles supposed the human mind to be, could not possibly outlast the organism in which it was enclosed; and if Empedocles himself, by an inconsistency not uncommon with men of genius, refused to draw the only legitimate conclusion from his own principles, the discrepancy could not fail to force itself on his successors. Still more fatal to the belief in a continuance of personal identity after death was the theory put forward by Diogenes of Apollonia, that there is really no personal identity even in lifethat consciousness is only maintained by a perpetual inhalation of the vital air in which all reason resides. The soul very literally left the body with the last breath, and had a poor chance of holding together afterwards, especially, as the wits observed, if a high wind happened to be blowing at the time.Before entering on our task, one more difficulty remains to be noticed. Plato, although the greatest master of prose composition that ever lived, and for his time a remarkably voluminous author, cherished a strong dislike for books, and even affected to regret that the art of writing had ever been invented. A man, he said, might amuse himself by putting down his ideas on paper, and might even find written178 memoranda useful for private reference, but the only instruction worth speaking of was conveyed by oral communication, which made it possible for objections unforeseen by the teacher to be freely urged and answered.117 Such had been the method of Socrates, and such was doubtless the practice of Plato himself whenever it was possible for him to set forth his philosophy by word of mouth. It has been supposed, for this reason, that the great writer did not take his own books in earnest, and wished them to be regarded as no more than the elegant recreations of a leisure hour, while his deeper and more serious thoughts were reserved for lectures and conversations, of which, beyond a few allusions in Aristotle, every record has perished. That such, however, was not the case, may be easily shown. In the first place it is evident, from the extreme pains taken by Plato to throw his philosophical expositions into conversational form, that he did not despair of providing a literary substitute for spoken dialogue. Secondly, it is a strong confirmation of this theory that Aristotle, a personal friend and pupil of Plato during many years, should so frequently refer to the Dialogues as authoritative evidences of his masters opinions on the most important topics. And, lastly, if it can be shown that the documents in question do actually embody a comprehensive and connected view of life and of the world, we shall feel satisfied that the oral teaching of Plato, had it been preserved, would not modify in any material degree the impression conveyed by his written compositions.
cupiditate non provident
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FORE:It was natural that one who united a great intellect to a glowing temperament should turn his thoughts to poetry. Plato wrote a quantity of versesverse-making had become fashionable just thenbut wisely committed them to the flames on making the acquaintance of Socrates. It may well be doubted whether the author of the Phaedrus and the Symposium would ever have attained eminence in metrical composition, even had he lived in an age far more favourable to poetic inspiration than that which came after the flowering time of Attic art. It seems as if Plato, with all his fervour, fancy, and dramatic skill, lacked the most essential quality of a singer; his finest passages are on a level with the highest poetry, and yet they are separated from it by a chasm more easily felt than described. Aristotle, whom we think of as hard and dry and cold, sometimes comes much nearer to the true lyric cry. And, as if to mark out Platos style still more distinctly from every other, it is also deficient in oratorical power. The philosopher evidently thought that he could beat the rhetoricians on their own ground; if the Menexenus be genuine, he tried to do so and failed; and even without its191 testimony we are entitled to say as much on the strength of shorter attempts. We must even take leave to doubt whether dialogue, properly so called, was Platos forte. Where one speaker is placed at such a height above the others as Socrates, or the Eleatic Stranger, or the Athenian in the Laws, there cannot be any real conversation. The other interlocutors are good listeners, and serve to break the monotony of a continuous exposition by their expressions of assent or even by their occasional inability to follow the argument, but give no real help or stimulus. And when allowed to offer an opinion of their own, they, too, lapse into a monologue, addressed, as our silent trains of thought habitually are, to an imaginary auditor whose sympathy and support are necessary but are also secure. Yet if Platos style is neither exactly poetical, nor oratorical, nor conversational, it has affinities with each of these three varieties; it represents the common root from which they spring, and brings us, better than any other species of composition, into immediate contact with the mind of the writer. The Platonic Socrates has eyes like those of a portrait which follow us wherever we turn, and through which we can read his inmost soul, which is no other than the universal reason of humanity in the delighted surprise of its first awakening to self-conscious activity. The poet thinks and feels for us; the orator makes our thoughts and feelings his own, and then restores them to us in a concentrated form, receiving in vapour what he gives back in a flood. Plato removes every obstacle to the free development of our faculties; he teaches us by his own example how to think and to feel for ourselves. If Socrates personified philosophy, Plato has reproduced the personification in artistic form with such masterly effect that its influence has been extended through all ages and over the whole civilised world. This portrait stands as an intermediary between its original and the far-reaching effects indirectly due to his dialectic inspiration, like that universal soul which Plato himself has placed between192 the supreme artificer and the material world, that it might bring the fleeting contents of space and time into harmony with uncreated and everlasting ideas.
cupiditate non provident
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FORE:If these various plans of arranging screw-cutting machines had reference to different kinds of work, it might be assumed that all of them are correct, but they are as a rule all applied to the same kind of work; hence it is safe to conclude that there is one arrangement better than the rest, or that one plan is right and the others wrong. This matter may in some degree be determined by following through the conditions of use and application.
cupiditate non provident
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