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the secret teachings of all ages
introduction
manly p. hall
PHILOSOPHY is the science of
estimating values. The superiority of any state or substance over
another is determined by philosophy. By assigning a position of primary
importance to what remains when all that is secondary has been removed,
philosophy thus becomes the true index of priority or emphasis in the
realm of speculative thought. The mission of philosophy a priori is to
establish the relation of manifested things to their invisible ultimate
cause or nature.
"Philosophy," writes Sir
William Hamilton, "has been defined [as]: The science of things divine
and human, and of the causes in which they are contained [Cicero]; The
science of effects by their causes [Hobbes]; The science of sufficient
reasons [Leibnitz]; The science of things possible, inasmuch as they are
possible [Wolf]; The science of things evidently deduced from first
principles [Descartes]; The science of truths, sensible and abstract [de
Condillac]; The application of reason to its legitimate objects
[Tennemann]; The science of the relations of all knowledge to the
necessary ends of human reason [Kant];The science of the original form
of the ego or mental self [Krug]; The science of sciences [Fichte]; The
science of the absolute [von Schelling]; The science of the absolute
indifference of the ideal and real [von Schelling]--or, The identity of
identity and non-identity [Hegel]." (See Lectures on Metaphysics and
Logic.)
The six headings under which
the disciplines of philosophy are commonly classified are:
metaphysics, which deals with such abstract subjects as
cosmology, theology, and the nature of being; logic, which deals
with the laws governing rational thinking, or, as it has been called,
"the doctrine of fallacies"; ethics, which is the science of
morality, individual responsibility, and character--concerned chiefly
with an effort to determine the nature of good; psychology, which
is devoted to investigation and classification of those forms of
phenomena referable to a mental origin; epistemology, which is
the science concerned primarily with the nature of knowledge itself and
the question of whether it may exist in an absolute form; and
æsthetics, which is the science of the nature of and the
reactions awakened by the beautiful, the harmonious, the elegant, and
the noble.
Plato regarded philosophy as
the greatest good ever imparted by Divinity to man. In the twentieth
century, however, it has become a ponderous and complicated structure of
arbitrary and irreconcilable notions--yet each substantiated by almost
incontestible logic. The lofty theorems of the old Academy which
Iamblichus likened to the nectar and ambrosia of the gods have been so
adulterated by opinion--which Heraclitus declared to be a falling
sickness of the mind--that the heavenly mead would now be quite
unrecognizable to this great Neo-Platonist. Convincing evidence of the
increasing superficiality of modern scientific and philosophic thought
is its persistent drift towards materialism. When the great astronomer
Laplace was asked by Napoleon why he had not mentioned God in his
Traité de la Mécanique Céleste, the mathematician naively
replied: "Sire, I had no need for that hypothesis!"
In his treatise on Atheism, Sir
Francis Bacon tersely summarizes the situation thus: "A little
philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy
bringeth men's minds about to religion." The Metaphysics of Aristotle
opens with these words: "All men naturally desire to know." To satisfy
this common urge the unfolding human intellect has explored the
extremities of imaginable space without and the extremities of
imaginable self within, seeking to estimate the relationship between the
one and the all; the effect and the cause; Nature and the groundwork of
Nature; the mind and the source of the mind; the spirit and the
substance of the spirit; the illusion and the reality.
An ancient philosopher once
said: "He who has not even a knowledge of common things is a brute among
men. He who has an accurate knowledge of human concerns alone is a man
among brutes. But he who knows all that can be known by intellectual
energy, is a God among men." Man's status in the natural world is
determined, therefore, by the quality of his thinking. He whose mind is
enslaved to his bestial instincts is philosophically not superior to the
brute-, he whose rational faculties ponder human affairs is a man; and
he whose intellect is elevated to the consideration of divine realities
is already a demigod, for his being partakes of the luminosity with
which his reason has brought him into proximity. In his encomium of "the
science of sciences" Cicero is led to exclaim: "O philosophy, life's
guide! O searcher--out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we
and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities;
thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of
life."
In this age the word
philosophy has little meaning unless accompanied by some other
qualifying term. The body of philosophy has been broken up into numerous
isms more or less antagonistic, which have become so concerned
with the effort to disprove each other's fallacies that the sublimer
issues of divine order and human destiny have suffered deplorable
neglect. The ideal function of philosophy is to serve as the stabilizing
influence in human thought. By virtue of its intrinsic nature it should
prevent man from ever establishing unreasonable codes of life.
Philosophers themselves, however, have frustrated the ends of philosophy
by exceeding in their woolgathering those untrained minds whom they are
supposed to lead in the straight and narrow path of rational thinking.
To list and classify any but the more important of the now recognized
schools of philosophy is beyond the space limitations of this volume.
The vast area of speculation covered by philosophy will be appreciated
best after a brief consideration of a few of the outstanding systems of
philosophic discipline which have swayed the world of thought during the
last twenty-six centuries. The Greek school of philosophy had its
inception with the seven immortalized thinkers upon whom was first
conferred the appellation of Sophos, "the wise." According to
Diogenes Laertius, these were Thales, Solon, Chilon, Pittacus, Bias,
Cleobulus, and Periander. Water was conceived by Thales to be the primal
principle or element, upon which the earth floated like a ship, and
earthquakes were the result of disturbances in this universal sea. Since
Thales was an Ionian, the school perpetuating his tenets became known as
the Ionic. He died in 546 B.C., and was succeeded by Anaximander, who in
turn was followed by Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and Archelaus, with whom
the Ionic school ended. Anaximander, differing from his master Thales,
declared measureless and indefinable infinity to be the principle from
which all things were generated. Anaximenes asserted air to be the first
element of the universe; that souls and even the Deity itself were
composed of it.
BABBITT'S ATOM.
From Babbitt's Principles of
Light and Color.
Since the postulation of the
atomic theory by Democritus, many efforts have been made to determine
the structure of atoms and the method by which they unite to form
various elements, Even science has not refrained from entering this
field of speculation and presents for consideration most detailed and
elaborate representations of these minute bodies. By far the most
remarkable conception of the atom evolved during the last century is
that produced by the genius of Dr. Edwin D. Babbitt and which is
reproduced herewith. The diagram is self-explanatory. It must be borne
in mind that this apparently massive structure is actually s minute as
to defy analysis. Not only did Dr. Babbitt create this form of the atom
but he also contrived a method whereby these particles could be grouped
together in an orderly manner and thus result in the formation of
molecular bodies.
Anaxagoras (whose doctrine
savors of atomism) held God to be an infinite self-moving mind; that
this divine infinite Mind, not inclosed in any body, is the
efficient cause of all things; out of the infinite matter consisting of
similar parts, everything being made according to its species by the
divine mind, who when all things were at first confusedly mingled
together, came and reduced them to order." Archelaus declared the
principle of all things to be twofold: mind (which was incorporeal) and
air (which was corporeal), the rarefaction and condensation of the
latter resulting in fire and water respectively. The stars were
conceived by Archelaus to be burning iron places. Heraclitus (who lived
536-470 B.C. and is sometimes included in the Ionic school) in his
doctrine of change and eternal flux asserted fire to be the first
element and also the state into which the world would ultimately be
reabsorbed. The soul of the world he regarded as an exhalation from its
humid parts, and he declared the ebb and flow of the sea to be caused by
the sun.
After Pythagoras of Samos, its
founder, the Italic or Pythagorean school numbers among
its most distinguished representatives Empedocles, Epicharmus, Archytas,
Alcmæon, Hippasus, Philolaus, and Eudoxus. Pythagoras (580-500? B.C.)
conceived mathematics to be the most sacred and exact of all the
sciences, and demanded of all who came to him for study a familiarity
with arithmetic, music, astronomy, and geometry. He laid special
emphasis upon the philosophic life as a prerequisite to wisdom.
Pythagoras was one of the first teachers to establish a community
wherein all the members were of mutual assistance to one another in the
common attainment of the higher sciences. He also introduced the
discipline of retrospection as essential to the development of the
spiritual mind. Pythagoreanism may be summarized as a system of
metaphysical speculation concerning the relationships between numbers
and the causal agencies of existence. This school also first expounded
the theory of celestial harmonics or "the music of the spheres." John
Reuchlin said of Pythagoras that he taught nothing to his disciples
before the discipline of silence, silence being the first rudiment of
contemplation. In his Sophist, Aristotle credits Empedocles with
the discovery of rhetoric. Both Pythagoras and Empedocles accepted the
theory of transmigration, the latter saying: "A boy I was, then did a
maid become; a plant, bird, fish, and in the vast sea swum." Archytas is
credited with invention of the screw and the crane. Pleasure he declared
to be a pestilence because it was opposed to the temperance of the mind;
he considered a man without deceit to be as rare as a fish without
bones.
The Eleatic sect was
founded by Xenophanes (570-480 B.C.), who was conspicuous for his
attacks upon the cosmologic and theogonic fables of Homer and Hesiod.
Xenophanes declared that God was "one and incorporeal, in substance and
figure round, in no way resembling man; that He is all sight and all
hearing, but breathes not; that He is all things, the mind and wisdom,
not generate but eternal, impassible, immutable, and rational."
Xenophanes believed that all existing things were eternal, that the
world was without beginning or end, and that everything which was
generated was subject to corruption. He lived to great age and is said
to have buried his sons with his own hands. Parmenides studied under
Xenophanes, but never entirely subscribed to his doctrines. Parmenides
declared the senses to be uncertain and reason the only criterion of
truth. He first asserted the earth to be round and also divided its
surface into zones of hear and cold.
Melissus, who is included in
the Eleatic school, held many opinions in common with Parmenides. He
declared the universe to be immovable because, occupying all space,
there was no place to which it could be moved. He further rejected the
theory of a vacuum in space. Zeno of Elea also maintained that a vacuum
could not exist. Rejecting the theory of motion, he asserted that there
was but one God, who was an eternal, ungenerated Being. Like Xenophanes,
he conceived Deity to be spherical in shape. Leucippus held the Universe
to consist of two parts: one full and the other a vacuum. From the
Infinite a host of minute fragmentary bodies descended into the vacuum,
where, through continual agitation, they organized themselves into
spheres of substance.
The great Democritus to a
certain degree enlarged upon the atomic theory of Leucippus. Democritus
declared the principles of all things to be twofold: atoms and vacuum.
Both, he asserted, are infinite--atoms in number, vacuum in magnitude.
Thus all bodies must be composed of atoms or vacuum. Atoms possessed two
properties, form and size, both characterized by infinite variety. The
soul Democritus also conceived to be atomic in structure and subject to
dissolution with the body. The mind he believed to be composed of
spiritual atoms. Aristotle intimates that Democritus obtained his atomic
theory from the Pythagorean doctrine of the Monad. Among the
Eleatics are also included Protagoras and Anaxarchus.
Socrates (469-399 B.C.), the
founder of the Socratic sect, being fundamentally a Skeptic, did
not force his opinions upon others, but through the medium of
questionings caused each man to give expression to his own philosophy.
According to Plutarch, Socrates conceived every place as appropriate for
reaching in that the whole world was a school of virtue. He held that
the soul existed before the body and, prior to immersion therein, was
endowed with all knowledge; that when the soul entered into the material
form it became stupefied, but that by discourses upon sensible objects
it was caused to reawaken and to recover its original knowledge. On
these premises was based his attempt to stimulate the soul-power through
irony and inductive reasoning. It has been said of Socrates that the
sole subject of his philosophy was man. He himself declared philosophy
to be the way of true happiness and its purpose twofold: (1) to
contemplate God, and (2) to abstract the soul from corporeal
sense.
The principles of all things he
conceived to be three in number: God, matter, and
ideas. Of God he said: "What He is I know not; what He is not I
know." Matter he defined as the subject of generation and corruption;
idea, as an incorruptible substance--the intellect of God. Wisdom he
considered the sum of the virtues. Among the prominent members of the
Socratic sect were Xenophon, Æschines, Crito, Simon, Glauco, Simmias,
and Cebes. Professor Zeller, the great authority on ancient
philosophies, has recently declared the writings of Xenophon relating to
Socrates to be forgeries. When The Clouds of Aristophanes, a
comedy written to ridicule the theories of Socrates, was first
presented, the great Skeptic himself attended the play. During the
performance, which caricatured him seated in a basket high in the air
studying the sun, Socrates rose calmly in his seat, the better to enable
the Athenian spectators to compare his own unprepossessing features with
the grotesque mask worn by the actor impersonating him.
The Elean sect was
founded by Phædo of Elis, a youth of noble family, who was bought from
slavery at the instigation of Socrates and who became his devoted
disciple. Plato so highly admired Phædo's mentality that he named one of
the most famous of his discourses The Phædo. Phædo was succeeded in his
school by Plisthenes, who in turn was followed by Menedemus. Of the
doctrines of the Elean sect little is known. Menedemus is presumed to
have been inclined toward the teachings of Stilpo and the Megarian sect.
When Menedemus' opinions were demanded, he answered that he was free,
thus intimating that most men were enslaved to their opinions. Menedemus
was apparently of a somewhat belligerent temperament and often returned
from his lectures in a badly bruised condition. The most famous of his
propositions is stated thus: That which is not the same is different
from that with which it is not the same. This point being admitted,
Menedemus continued: To benefit is not the same as good, therefore good
does not benefit. After the time of Menedemus the Elean sect became
known as the Eretrian. Its exponents denounced all negative propositions
and all complex and abstruse theories, declaring that only affirmative
and simple doctrines could be true.
The Megarian sect was
founded by Euclid of Megara (not the celebrated mathematician), a great
admirer of Socrates. The Athenians passed a law decreeing death to any
citizen of Megara found in the city of Athens. Nothing daunted, Euclid
donned woman's clothing and went at night to study with Socrates. After
the cruel death of their teacher, the disciples of Socrates, fearing a
similar fate, fled to Megara, where they were entertained with great
honor by Euclid. The Megarian school accepted the Socratic doctrine that
virtue is wisdom, adding to it the Eleatic concept that goodness is
absolute unity and all change an illusion of the senses. Euclid
maintained that good has no opposite and therefore evil does not exist.
Being asked about the nature of the gods, he declared himself ignorant
of their disposition save that they hated curious persons.
The Megarians are occasionally
included among the dialectic philosophers. Euclid (who died 374? B.C.)
was succeeded in his school by Eubulides, among whose disciples were
Alexinus and Apollonius Cronus. Euphantus, who lived to great age and
wrote many tragedies, was among the foremost followers of Eubulides.
Diodorus is usually included in the Megarian school, having heard
Eubulides lecture. According to legend, Diodorus died of grief because
he could not answer instantly certain questions asked him by Stilpo, at
one time master of the Megarian school. Diodorus held that
nothing can be moved, since to be moved
it must be taken out of the place in which it is and put into the place
where it is not, which is impossible because all things must always be
in the places where they are.
PLATO.
From Thomasin's Recuil des
Figures, Groupes, Thermes, Fontaines, Vases et autres
Ornaments.
Plato's real name was
Aristocles. When his father brought him to study with Socrates, the
great Skeptic declared that on the previous night he had dreamed of a
white swan, which was an omen that his new disciple was to become one of
the world's illumined. There is a tradition that the immortal Plato was
sold as a slave by the King of Sicily.
The Cynics were a sect
founded by Antisthenes of Athens (444-365? B.C.), a disciple of
Socrates. Their doctrine may be described as an extreme individualism
which considers man as existing for himself alone and advocates
surrounding him by inharmony, suffering, and direst need that be may
thereby be driven to retire more completely into his own nature. The
Cynics renounced all worldly possessions, living in the rudest shelters
and subsisting upon the coarsest and simplest food. On the assumption
that the gods wanted nothing, the Cynics affirmed that those whose needs
were fewest consequently approached closest to the divinities. Being
asked what he gained by a life of philosophy, Antisthenes replied that
he had learned how to converse with himself.
Diogenes of Sinopis is
remembered chiefly for the tub in the Metroum which for many years
served him as a home. The people of Athens loved the beggar-philosopher,
and when a youth in jest bored holes in the tub, the city presented
Diogenes with a new one and punished the youth. Diogenes believed that
nothing in life can be rightly accomplished without exercitation. He
maintained that everything in the world belongs to the wise, a
declaration which he proved by the following logic: "All things belong
to the gods; the gods are friends to wise persons; all things are common
amongst friends; therefore all things belong to the wise." Among the
Cynics are Monimus, Onesicritus, Crates, Metrocles, Hipparchia (who
married Crates), Menippus, and Menedemus.
The Cyrenaic sect,
founded by Aristippus of Cyrene (435-356? B.C.), promulgated the
doctrine of hedonism. Learning of the fame of Socrates, Aristippus
journeyed to Athens and applied himself to the teachings of the great
Skeptic. Socrates, pained by the voluptuous and mercenary tendencies of
Aristippus, vainly labored to reform the young man. Aristippus has the
distinction of being consistent in principle and practice, for he lived
in perfect harmony with his philosophy that the quest of pleasure was
the chief purpose of life. The doctrines of the Cyrenaics may be
summarized thus: All that is actually known concerning any object or
condition is the feeling which it awakens in man's own nature. In the
sphere of ethics that which awakens the most pleasant feeling is
consequently to be esteemed as the greatest good. Emotional reactions
are classified as pleasant or gentle, harsh, and mean. The end of
pleasant emotion is pleasure; the end of harsh emotion, grief; the end
of mean emotion, nothing.
Through mental perversity some
men do not desire pleasure. In reality, however, pleasure (especially of
a physical nature) is the true end of existence and exceeds in every way
mental and spiritual enjoyments. Pleasure, furthermore, is limited
wholly to the moment; now is the only time. The past cannot be regarded
without regret and the future cannot be faced without misgiving;
therefore neither is conducive to pleasure. No man should grieve, for
grief is the most serious of all diseases. Nature permits man to do
anything he desires; he is limited only by his own laws and customs. A
philosopher is one free from envy, love, and superstition, and whose
days are one long round of pleasure. Indulgence was thus elevated by
Aristippus to the chief position among the virtues. He further declared
philosophers to differ markedly from other men in that they alone would
not change the order of their lives if all the laws of men were
abolished. Among prominent philosophers influenced by the Cyrenaic
doctrines were Hegesias, Anniceris, Theodorus, and Bion.
The sect of the Academic
philosophers instituted by Plato (427-347 B.C.) was divided into three
major parts--the old, the middle, and the new Academy. Among the old
Academics were Speusippus, Zenocrates, Poleman, Crates, and Crantor.
Arcesilaus instituted the middle Academy and Carneades founded the new.
Chief among the masters of Plato was Socrates. Plato traveled widely and
was initiated by the Egyptians into the profundities of Hermetic
philosophy. He also derived much from the doctrines of the Pythagoreans.
Cicero describes the threefold constitution of Platonic philosophy as
comprising ethics, physics, and dialectics. Plato defined good as
threefold in character: good in the soul, expressed through the virtues;
good in the body, expressed through the symmetry and endurance of the
parts; and good in the external world, expressed through social position
and companionship. In The Book of Speusippus on Platonic
Definitions, that great Platonist thus defines God: "A being that
lives immortally by means of Himself alone, sufficing for His own
blessedness, the eternal Essence, cause of His own goodness. According
to Plato, the One is the term most suitable for defining the
Absolute, since the whole precedes the parts and diversity is dependent
on unity, but unity not on diversity. The One, moreover, is before
being, for to be is an attribute or condition of the
One.
Platonic philosophy is based
upon the postulation of three orders of being: that which moves unmoved,
that which is self-moved, and that which is moved. That which is
immovable but moves is anterior to that which is self-moved, which
likewise is anterior to that which it moves. That in which motion is
inherent cannot be separated from its motive power; it is therefore
incapable of dissolution. Of such nature are the immortals. That which
has motion imparted to it from another can be separated from the source
of its an animating principle; it is therefore subject to dissolution.
Of such nature are mortal beings. Superior to both the mortals and the
immortals is that condition which continually moves yet itself is
unmoved. To this constitution the power of abidance is inherent; it is
therefore the Divine Permanence upon which all things are established.
Being nobler even than self-motion, the unmoved Mover is the first of
all dignities. The Platonic discipline was founded upon the theory that
learning is really reminiscence, or the bringing into objectivity of
knowledge formerly acquired by the soul in a previous state of
existence. At the entrance of the Platonic school in the Academy were
written the words: "Let none ignorant of geometry enter
here."
After the death of Plato, his
disciples separated into two groups. One, the Academics,
continued to meet in the Academy where once he had presided; the other,
the Peripatetics, removed to the Lyceum under the leadership of
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). Plato recognized Aristotle as his greatest
disciple and, according to Philoponus, referred to him as "the mind of
the school." If Aristotle were absent from the lectures, Plato would
say: "The intellect is not here." Of the prodigious genius of Aristotle,
Thomas Taylor writes in his introduction to The
Metaphysics:
"When we consider that he was
not only well acquainted with every science, as his works abundantly
evince, but that he wrote on almost every subject which is comprehended
in the circle of human knowledge, and this with matchless accuracy and
skill, we know not which to admire most, the penetration or extent of
his mind."
THE PROBLEM OF
DIVERSITY.
From Kircher's Ars Magna
Sciendi.
In the above diagram Kircher
arranges eighteen objects in two vertical columns and then determines he
number of arrangements in which they can be combined. By the same method
Kircher further estimates that fifty objects may be arranged in
1,273,726,838,815,420,339,851,343,083,767,005,515,293,749,454,795,408,000,000,000,000
combinations. From this it will be evident that infinite diversity is
possible, for the countless parts of the universe may be related to each
other in an incalculable number of ways; and through the various
combinations of these limitless subdivisions of being, infinite
individuality and infinite variety must inevitably result. Thus it is
further evident that life can never become monotonous or exhaust the
possibilities of variety.
Of the philosophy of Aristotle, the same
author says: "The end of Aristotle's moral philosophy is perfection
through the virtues, and the end of his contemplative philosophy an
union with the one principle of all things."
Aristotle conceived philosophy
to be twofold: practical and theoretical. Practical philosophy embraced
ethics and politics; theoretical philosophy, physics and logic.
Metaphysics he considered to be the science concerning that substance
which has the principle of motion and rest inherent to itself. To
Aristotle the soul is that by which man first lives, feels, and
understands. Hence to the soul he assigned three faculties: nutritive,
sensitive, and intellective. He further considered the soul to be
twofold--rational and irrational--and in some particulars elevated the
sense perceptions above the mind. Aristotle defined wisdom as the
science of first Causes. The four major divisions of his philosophy are
dialectics, physics, ethics, and metaphysics. God is defined as the
First Mover, the Best of beings, an immovable Substance, separate from
sensible things, void of corporeal quantity, without parts and
indivisible. Platonism is based upon a priori reasoning;
Aristotelianism upon a posteriori reasoning. Aristotle taught his
pupil, Alexander the Great, to feel that if he had not done a good deed
he had not reigned that day. Among his followers were Theophrastus,
Strato, Lyco, Aristo, Critolaus, and Diodorus.
Of Skepticism as
propounded by Pyrrho of Elis (365-275 B.C.) and by Timon, Sextus
Empiricus said that those who seek must find or deny they have found or
can find, or persevere in the inquiry. Those who suppose they have found
truth are called Dogmatists; those who think it incomprehensible
are the Academics; those who still seek are the Skeptics.
The attitude of Skepticism towards the knowable is summed up by Sextus
Empiricus in the following words: "But the chief ground of Skepticism is
that to every reason there is an opposite reason equivalent, which makes
us forbear to dogmatize." The Skeptics were strongly opposed to the
Dogmatists and were agnostic in that they held the accepted theories
regarding Deity to be self-contradictory and undemonstrable. "How,"
asked the Skeptic, "can we have indubitate knowledge of God, knowing not
His substance, form or place; for, while philosophers disagree
irreconcilably on these points, their conclusions cannot be considered
as undoubtedly
true?" Since absolute knowledge was considered unattainable, the
Skeptics declared the end of their discipline to be: "In opinionatives,
indisturbance; in impulsives, moderation; and in disquietives,
suspension."
The sect of the Stoics
was founded by Zeno (340-265 B.C.), the Cittiean, who studied under
Crates the Cynic, from which sect the Stoics had their origin. Zeno was
succeeded by Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Zeno of Tarsis, Diogenes, Antipater,
Panætius, and Posidonius. Most famous of the Roman Stoics are Epictetus
and Marcus Aurelius. The Stoics were essentially pantheists, since they
maintained that as there is nothing better than the world, the world is
God. Zeno declared that the reason of the world is diffused throughout
it as seed. Stoicism is a materialistic philosophy, enjoining voluntary
resignation to natural law. Chrysippus maintained that good and evil
being contrary, both are necessary since each sustains the other. The
soul was regarded as a body distributed throughout the physical form and
subject to dissolution with it. Though some of the Stoics held that
wisdom prolonged the existence of the soul, actual immortality is not
included in their tenets. The soul was said to be composed of eight
parts: the five senses, the generative power, the vocal power, and an
eighth, or hegemonic, part. Nature was defined as God mixed throughout
the substance of the world. All things were looked upon as bodies either
corporeal or incorporeal.
Meekness marked the attitude of
the Stoic philosopher. While Diogenes was delivering a discourse against
anger, one of his listeners spat contemptuously in his face. Receiving
the insult with humility, the great Stoic was moved to retort: "I am not
angry, but am in doubt whether I ought to be so or not!"
Epicurus of Samos (341-270
B.C.) was the founder of the Epicurean sect, which in many
respects resembles the Cyrenaic but is higher in its ethical standards.
The Epicureans also posited pleasure as the most desirable state, but
conceived it to be a grave and dignified state achieved through
renunciation of those mental and emotional inconstancies which are
productive of pain and sorrow. Epicurus held that as the pains of the
mind and soul are more grievous than those of the body, so the joys of
the mind and soul exceed those of the body. The Cyrenaics asserted
pleasure to be dependent upon action or motion; the Epicureans claimed
rest or lack of action to be equally productive of pleasure. Epicurus
accepted the philosophy of Democritus concerning the nature of atoms and
based his physics upon this theory. The Epicurean philosophy may be
summed up in four canons:
"(1) Sense is never deceived;
and therefore every sensation and every perception of an appearance is
true. (2) Opinion follows upon sense and is superadded to sensation, and
capable of truth or falsehood, (3) All opinion attested, or not
contradicted by the evidence of sense, is true. (4) An opinion
contradicted, or not attested by the evidence of sense, is false." Among
the Epicureans of note were Metrodorus of Lampsacus, Zeno of Sidon, and
Phædrus.
Eclecticism may be
defined as the practice of choosing apparently irreconcilable doctrines
from antagonistic schools and constructing therefrom a composite
philosophic system in harmony with the convictions of the eclectic
himself. Eclecticism can scarcely be considered philosophically or
logically sound, for as individual schools arrive at their conclusions
by different methods of reasoning, so the philosophic product of
fragments from these schools must necessarily be built upon the
foundation of conflicting premises. Eclecticism, accordingly, has been
designated the layman's cult. In the Roman Empire little thought was
devoted to philosophic theory; consequently most of its thinkers were of
the eclectic type. Cicero is the outstanding example of early
Eclecticism, for his writings are a veritable potpourri of invaluable
fragments from earlier schools of thought. Eclecticism appears to have
had its inception at the moment when men first doubted the possibility
of discovering ultimate truth. Observing all so-called knowledge to be
mere opinion at best, the less studious furthermore concluded that the
wiser course to pursue was to accept that which appeared to be the most
reasonable of the teachings of any school or individual. From this
practice, however, arose a pseudo-broadmindedness devoid of the element
of preciseness found in true logic and philosophy.
The Neo-Pythagorean
school flourished in Alexandria during the first century of the
Christian Era. Only two names stand out in connection with
it--Apollonius of Tyana and Moderatus of Gades. Neo-Pythagoreanism is a
link between the older pagan philosophies and Neo-Platonism. Like the
former, it contained many exact elements of thought derived from
Pythagoras and Plato; like the latter, it emphasized metaphysical
speculation and ascetic habits. A striking similarity has been observed
by several authors between Neo-Pythagoreanism and the doctrines of the
Essenes. Special emphasis was laid upon the mystery of numbers, and it
is possible that the Neo-Pythagoreans had a far wider knowledge of the
true teachings of Pythagoras than is available today. Even in the first
century Pythagoras was regarded more as a god than a man, and the
revival of his philosophy was resorted to apparently in the hope that
his name would stimulate interest in the deeper systems of learning. But
Greek philosophy had passed the zenith of its splendor; the mass of
humanity was awakening to the importance of physical life and physical
phenomena. The emphasis upon earthly affairs which began to assert
itself later reached maturity of expression in twentieth century
materialism and commercialism, even though Neo-Platonism was
to intervene and many centuries pass before this emphasis took definite
form.
ÆNEAS AT THE GATE OF
HELL.
From Virgil's Æneid.
(Dryden's translation.)
Virgil describes part of the ritual of
a Greek Mystery--possibly the Eleusinian--in his account of the descent
of Æneas, to the gate of hell under the guidance of the Sibyl. Of that
part of the ritual portrayed above the immortal poet writes:
"Full in the midst of this infernal
Road,
An Elm displays her dusky Arms abroad;
The God of Sleep
there hides his heavy Head
And empty Dreams on ev'ry Leaf are
spread.
Of various Forms, unnumber'd Specters more;
Centaurs, and
double Shapes, besiege the Door:
Before the Passage horrid Hydra
stands,
And Briareus with all his hundred Hands:
Gorgons, Geryon
with his triple Frame;
And vain Chimæra vomits empty Flame.
The
Chief unsheath'd his shining Steel, prepar'd,
Tho seiz'd with sudden
Fear, to force the Guard.
Off'ring his brandish'd Weapon at their
Face,
Had not the Sibyl stop'd his eager Pace,
And told him what
those empty Phantoms were;
Forms without Bodies, and impassive
Air."
Although Ammonius Saccus was
long believed to be the founder of Neo-Platonism, the school had
its true beginning in Plotinus (A.D. 204-269?). Prominent among the
Neo-Platonists of Alexandria, Syria, Rome, and Athens were Porphyry,
Iamblichus, Sallustius, the Emperor Julian, Plutarch, and Proclus.
Neo-Platonism was the supreme effort of decadent pagandom to publish and
thus preserve for posterity its secret (or unwritten) doctrine. In its
teachings ancient idealism found its most perfect expression.
Neo-Platonism was concerned almost exclusively with the problems of
higher metaphysics. It recognized the existence of a secret and
all-important doctrine which from the time of the earliest civilizations
had been concealed within the rituals, symbols, and allegories of
religions and philosophies. To the mind unacquainted with its
fundamental tenets, Neo-Platonism may appear to be a mass of
speculations interspersed with extravagant flights of fancy. Such a
viewpoint, however, ignores the institutions of the Mysteries--those
secret schools into whose profundities of idealism nearly all of the
first philosophers of antiquity were initiated.
When the physical body of pagan
thought collapsed, an attempt was made to resurrect the form by
instilling new life into it by the unveiling of its mystical truths.
This effort apparently was barren of results. Despite the antagonism,
however, between pristine Christianity and Neo-Platonism many basic
tenets of the latter were accepted by the former and woven into the
fabric of Patristic philosophy. Briefly described, Neo-Platonism is a
philosophic code which conceives every physical or concrete body of
doctrine to be merely the shell of a spiritual verity which may be
discovered through meditation and certain exercises of a mystic nature.
In comparison to the esoteric spiritual truths which they contain, the
corporeal bodies of religion and philosophy were considered relatively
of little value. Likewise, no emphasis was placed upon the material
sciences.
The term Patristic is
employed to designate the philosophy of the Fathers of the early
Christian Church. Patristic philosophy is divided into two general
epochs: ante-Nicene and post-Nicene. The ante-Nicene period in the main
was devoted to attacks upon paganism and to apologies and defenses of
Christianity. The entire structure of pagan philosophy was assailed and
the dictates of faith elevated above those of reason. In some instances
efforts were made to reconcile the evident truths of paganism with
Christian revelation. Eminent among the ante-Nicene Fathers were St.
Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Justin Martyr. In the post-Nicene
period more emphasis was placed upon the unfoldment of Christian
philosophy along Platonic and Neo-Platonic lines, resulting in the
appearance of many strange documents of a lengthy, rambling, and
ambiguous nature, nearly all of which were philosophically unsound. The
post-Nicene philosophers included Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and
Cyril of Alexandria. The Patristic school is notable for its emphasis
upon the supremacy of man throughout the universe. Man was conceived to
be a separate and divine creation--the crowning achievement of Deity and
an exception to the suzerainty of natural law. To the Patristics it was
inconceivable that there should ever exist another creature so noble, so
fortunate, or so able as man, for whose sole benefit and edification all
the kingdoms of Nature were primarily created.
Patristic philosophy culminated
in Augustinianism, which may best be defined as Christian
Platonism. Opposing the Pelasgian doctrine that man is the author
of his own salvation, Augustinianism elevated the church and its dogmas
to a position of absolute infallibility--a position which it
successfully maintained until the Reformation. Gnosticism, a
system of emanationism, interpreting Christianity in terms of Greek,
Egyptian, and Persian metaphysics, appeared in the latter part of the
first century of the Christian Era. Practically all the information
extant regarding the Gnostics and their doctrines, stigmatized as heresy
by the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, is derived from the accusations made
against them, particularly from the writings of St. Irenæus. In the
third century appeared Manichæism, a dualistic system of Persian
origin, which taught that Good and Evil were forever contending for
universal supremacy. In Manichæism, Christ is conceived to be the
Principle of redeeming Good in contradistinction to the man Jesus, who
was viewed as an evil personality.
The death of Boethius in the
sixth century marked the close of the ancient Greek school of
philosophy. The ninth century saw the rise of the new school of
Scholasticism, which sought to reconcile philosophy with
theology. Representative of the main divisions of the Scholastic school
were the Eclecticism of John of Salisbury, the Mysticism
of Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Bonaventura, the Rationalism of
Peter Abelard, and the pantheistic Mysticism of Meister
Eckhart. Among the Arabian Aristotelians were Avicenna and Averroes.
The zenith of Scholasticism was reached with the advent of Albertus
Magnus and his illustrious disciple, St. Thomas Aquinas. Thomism
(the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, sometimes referred to as the
Christian Aristotle) sought to reconcile the various factions of the
Scholastic school. Thomism was basically Aristotelian with the added
concept that faith is a projection of reason.
Scotism, or the doctrine
of Voluntarism promulgated by Joannes Duns Scotus, a Franciscan
Scholastic, emphasized the power and efficacy of the individual will, as
opposed to Thomism. The outstanding characteristic of Scholasticism was
its frantic effort to cast all European thought in an Aristotelian mold.
Eventually the Schoolmen descended to the level of mere wordmongers who
picked the words of Aristotle so clean that nothing but the bones
remained. It was this decadent school of meaningless verbiage against
which Sir Francis Bacon directed his bitter shafts of irony and which he
relegated to the potter's field of discarded notions.
The Baconian, or inductive,
system of reasoning (whereby facts are arrived at by a process of
observation and verified by experimentation) cleared the way for the
schools of modern science. Bacon was followed by Thomas Hobbes (for some
time his secretary), who held mathematics to be the only exact science
and thought to be essentially a mathematical process. Hobbes declared
matter to be the only reality, and scientific investigation to be
limited to the study of bodies, the phenomena relative to their probable
causes, and the consequences which flow from them under every variety of
circumstance. Hobbes laid special stress upon the significance of words,
declaring understanding to be the faculty of perceiving the relationship
between words and the objects for which they stand.
Having broken away from the
scholastic and theological schools, Post-Reformation, or modern,
philosophy experienced a most prolific growth along many diverse lines.
According to Humanism, man is the measure of all things;
Rationalism makes the reasoning faculties the basis of all
knowledge; Political Philosophy holds that man must comprehend
his natural, social, and national privileges; Empiricism declares that
alone to be true which is demonstrable by experiment or experience;
Moralism emphasizes the necessity of right conduct as a
fundamental philosophic tenet; Idealism asserts the realities of
the universe to be superphysical--either mental or psychical;
Realism, the reverse; and Phenomenalism restricts
knowledge to facts or events which can be scientifically described or
explained. The most recent developments in the field of philosophic
thought are Behaviorism and Neo-Realism. The former
estimates the intrinsic characteristics through an analysis of behavior;
the latter may be summed up as the total extinction of
idealism.
Baruch de Spinoza, the eminent
Dutch philosopher, conceived God to be a substance absolutely
self-existent and needing no other conception besides itself to render
it complete and intelligible. The nature of this Being was held by
Spinoza to be comprehensible only through its attributes, which are
extension and thought: these combine to form an endless variety of
aspects or modes. The mind of man is one of the modes of
infinite thought; the body of man one of the modes of infinite
extension. Through reason man is enabled to elevate himself above the
illusionary world of the senses and find eternal repose in perfect union
with the Divine Essence. Spinoza, it has been said, deprived God of all
personality, making Deity synonymous with the universe.
THE PTOLEMAIC SCHEME OF THE
UNIVERSE.
From an old print, courtesy of
Carl Oscar Borg.
In ridiculing the geocentric
system of astronomy expounded by Claudius Ptolemy, modem astronomers
have overlooked the philosophic key to the Ptolemaic system. The
universe of Ptolemy is a diagrammatic representation of the
relationships existing between the various divine and elemental parts of
every creature, and is not concerned with astronomy as that science is
now comprehended. In the above figure, special attention is called to
the three circles of zodiacs surrounding the orbits of the planets.
These zodiacs represent the threefold spiritual constitution of the
universe. The orbits of the planets are the Governors of the World and
the four elemental spheres in the center represent the physical
constitution of both man and the universe, Ptolemy's scheme of the
universe is simply a cross section of the universal aura, the planets
and elements to which he refers having no relation to those recognized
by modern astronomers.
German philosophy had its
inception with Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz, whose theories are
permeated with the qualities of optimism and idealism. Leibnitz's
criteria of sufficient reason revealed to him the insufficiency
of Descartes' theory of extension, and he therefore concluded that
substance itself contained an inherent power in the form of an
incalculable number of separate and all-sufficient units. Matter reduced
to its ultimate particles ceases to exist as a substantial body, being
resolved into a mass of immaterial ideas or metaphysical units of power,
to which Leibnitz applied the term monad. Thus the universe is
composed of an infinite number of separate monadic entities unfolding
spontaneously through the objectification of innate active qualities.
All things are conceived as consisting of single monads of varying
magnitudes or of aggregations of these bodies, which may exist as
physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual substances. God is the first
and greatest Monad; the spirit of man is an awakened monad in
contradistinction to the lower kingdoms whose governing monadic powers
are in a semi-dormant state.
Though a product of the
Leibnitzian-Wolfian school, Immanuel Kant, like Locke, dedicated himself
to investigation of the powers and limits of human understanding. The
result was his critical philosophy, embracing the critique of pure
reason, the critique of practical reason, and the critique of judgment.
Dr. W. J. Durant sums up Kant's philosophy in the concise statement that
he rescued mind from matter. The mind Kant conceived to be the selector
and coordinator of all perceptions, which in turn are the result of
sensations grouping themselves about some external object. In the
classification of sensations and ideas the mind employs certain
categories: of sense, time and space; of understanding, quality,
relation, modality, and causation; and the unity of apperception. Being
subject to mathematical laws, time and space are considered absolute and
sufficient bases for exact thinking. Kant's practical reason declared
that while the nature of noumenon could never be comprehended by
the reason, the fact of morality proves the existence of three necessary
postulates: free will, immortality, and God. In the critique of judgment
Kant demonstrates the union of the noumenon and the
phenomenon in art and biological evolution. German
superintellectualism is the outgrowth of an overemphasis of
Kant's theory of the autocratic supremacy of the mind over sensation and
thought. The philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a projection of
Kant's philosophy, wherein he attempted to unite Kant's practical reason
with his pure reason. Fichte held that the known is merely the contents
of the consciousness of the knower, and that nothing can exist to the
knower until it becomes part of those contents. Nothing is actually
real, therefore, except the facts of one's own mental
experience.
Recognizing the necessity of
certain objective realities, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, who
succeeded Fichte in the chair of philosophy at Jena, first employed the
doctrine of identity as the groundwork for a complete system of
philosophy. Whereas Fichte regarded self as the Absolute, von Schelling
conceived infinite and eternal Mind to be the all-pervading Cause.
Realization of the Absolute is made possible by intellectual intuition
which, being a superior or spiritual sense, is able to dissociate itself
from both subject and object. Kant's categories of space and time von
Schelling conceived to be positive and negative respectively, and
material existence the result of the reciprocal action of these two
expressions. Von Schelling also held that the Absolute in its process of
self-development proceeds according to a law or rhythm consisting of
three movements. The first, a reflective movement, is the attempt of the
Infinite to embody itself in the finite. The second, that of
subsumption, is the attempt of the Absolute to return to the Infinite
after involvement in the finite. The third, that of reason, is the
neutral point wherein the two former movements are blended.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
considered the intellectual intuition of von Schelling to be
philosophically unsound and hence turned his attention to the
establishment of a system of philosophy based upon pure logic. Of Hegel
it has been said that he began with nothing and showed with logical
precision how everything had proceeded from it in logical order. Hegel
elevated logic to a position of supreme importance, in fact as a quality
of the Absolute itself. God he conceived to be a process of unfolding
which never attains to the condition of unfoldment. In like manner,
thought is without either beginning or end. Hegel further believed that
all things owe their existence to their opposites and that all opposites
are actually identical. Thus the only existence is the relationship of
opposites to each other, through whose combinations new elements are
produced. As the Divine Mind is an eternal process of thought never
accomplished, Hegel assails the very foundation of theism and his
philosophy limits immortality to the everflowing Deity alone. Evolution
is consequently the never-ending flow of Divine Consciousness out of
itself; all creation, though continually moving, never arrives at any
state other than that of ceaseless flow.
Johann Friedrich Herbart's
philosophy was a realistic reaction from the idealism of Fichte and von
Schelling. To Herbart the true basis of philosophy was the great mass of
phenomena continually moving through the human mind. Examination of
phenomena, however, demonstrates that a great part of it is unreal, at
least incapable of supplying the mind with actual truth. To correct the
false impressions caused by phenomena and discover reality, Herbart
believed it necessary to resolve phenomena into separate elements, for
reality exists in the elements and not in the whole. He stated that
objects can be classified by three general terms: thing, matter, and
mind; the first a unit of several properties, the second an existing
object, the third a self-conscious being. All three notions give rise,
however, to certain contradictions, with whose solution Herbart is
primarily concerned. For example, consider matter. Though capable of
filling space, if reduced to its ultimate state it consists of
incomprehensibly minute units of divine energy occupying no physical
space whatsoever.
The true subject of Arthur
Schopenhauer's philosophy is the will; the object of his philosophy is
the elevation of the mind to the point where it is capable of
controlling the will. Schopenhauer likens the will to a strong blind man
who carries on his shoulders the intellect, which is a weak lame man
possessing the power of sight. The will is the tireless cause of
manifestation and every part of Nature the product of will. The brain is
the product of the will to know; the hand the product of the will to
grasp. The entire intellectual and emotional constitutions of man are
subservient to the will and are largely concerned with the effort to
justify the dictates of the will. Thus the mind creates elaborate
systems of thought simply to prove the necessity of the thing willed.
Genius, however, represents the state wherein the intellect has gained
supremacy over the will and the life is ruled by reason and not by
impulse. The strength of Christianity, said Schopenhauer, lay in its
pessimism and conquest of individual will. His own religious viewpoints
resembled closely the Buddhistic. To him Nirvana represented the
subjugation of will. Life--the manifestation of the blind will to
live--he viewed as a misfortune, claiming that the true philosopher was
one who, recognizing the wisdom of death, resisted the inherent urge to
reproduce his kind.
THE TREE OF CLASSICAL
MYTHOLOGY.
From Hort's The New
Pantheon.
Before a proper appreciation of
the deeper scientific aspects of Greek mythology is possible, it is
necessary to organize the Greek pantheon and arrange its gods,
goddesses, and various superhuman hierarchies in concatenated order.
Proclus, the great Neo-Platonist, in his commentaries on the theology of
Plato, gives an invaluable key to the sequence of the various deities in
relation to the First Cause and the inferior powers emanating from
themselves. When thus arranged, the divine hierarchies may be likened to
the branches of a great tree. The roots of this tree are firmly imbedded
in Unknowable Being. The trunk and larger branches of the tree symbolize
the superior gods; the twigs and leaves, the innumerable existences
dependent upon the first and unchanging Power.
Of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
it has been said that his peculiar contribution to the cause of human
hope was the glad tidings that God had died of pity! The outstanding
features of Nietzsche's philosophy are his doctrine of eternal
recurrence and the extreme emphasis placed by him upon the will to
power--a projection of Schopenhauer's will to live. Nietzsche
believed the purpose of existence to be the production of a type of
all-powerful individual, designated by him the superman. This superman
was the product of careful culturing, for if not separated forcibly from
the mass and consecrated to the production of power, the individual
would sink back to the level of the deadly mediocre. Love, Nietzsche
said, should be sacrificed to the production of the superman and those
only should marry who are best fitted to produce this outstanding type.
Nietzsche also believed in the rule of the aristocracy, both blood and
breeding being essential to the establishment of this superior type.
Nietzsche's doctrine did not liberate the masses; it rather placed over
them supermen for whom their inferior brothers and sisters should be
perfectly reconciled to die. Ethically and politically, the superman was
a law unto himself. To those who understand the true meaning of power to
be virtue, self-control, and truth, the ideality behind Nietzsche's
theory is apparent. To the superficial, however, it is a philosophy
heartless and calculating, concerned solely with the survival of the
fittest.
Of the other German schools of
philosophic thought, limitations of space preclude detailed mention. The
more recent developments of the German school are Freudianism and
Relativism (often called the Einstein theory). The former is a
system of psychoanalysis through psychopathic and neurological
phenomena; the latter attacks the accuracy of mechanical principles
dependent upon the present theory of velocity.
René Descartes stands at the
head of the French school of philosophy and shares with Sir Francis
Bacon the honor of founding the systems of modern science and
philosophy. As Bacon based his conclusions upon observation of external
things, so Descartes founded his metaphysical philosophy upon
observation of internal things. Cartesianism (the philosophy of
Descartes) first eliminates all things and then replaces as fundamental
those premises without which existence is impossible. Descartes defined
an idea as that which fills the mind when we conceive a thing. The truth
of an idea must be determined by the criteria of clarity and
distinctness. Hence Descartes, held that a clear and distinct idea must
be true. Descartes has the distinction also of evolving his own
philosophy without recourse to authority. Consequently his conclusions
are built up from the simplest of premises and grow in complexity as the
structure of his philosophy takes form.
The Positive philosophy
of Auguste Comte is based upon the theory that the human intellect
develops through three stages of thought. The first and lowest stage is
theological; the second, metaphysical; and the third and highest,
positive. Thus theology and metaphysics are the feeble intellectual
efforts of humanity's child-mind and positivism is the mental expression
of the adult intellect. In his Cours de Philosophie positive,
Comte writes:
"In the final, the positive
state, the mind has given over the vain search after Absolute notions,
the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena,
and applies itself to the study of their laws,--that is, their
invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and
observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge." Comte's
theory is described as an "enormous system of materialism." According to
Comte, it was formerly said that the heavens declare the glory of God,
but now they only recount the glory of Newton and Laplace.
Among the French schools of
philosophy are Traditionalism (often applied to Christianity),
which esteems tradition as the proper foundation for philosophy; the
Sociological school, which regards humanity as one vast social
organism; the Encyclopedists, whose efforts to classify knowledge
according to the Baconian system revolutionized European thought;
Voltairism, which assailed the divine origin of the Christian
faith and adopted an attitude of extreme skepticism toward all matters
pertaining to theology; and Neo-Criticism, a French revision of
the doctrines of Immanuel Kant.
Henri Bergson, the
intuitionalist, undoubtedly the greatest living French philosopher,
presents a theory of mystic anti-intellectualism founded upon the
premise of creative evolution, His rapid rise to popularity is due to
his appeal to the finer sentiments in human nature, which rebel against
the hopelessness and helplessness of materialistic science and realistic
philosophy. Bergson sees God as life continually struggling against the
limitations of matter. He even conceives the possible victory of life
over matter, and in time the annihilation of death.
Applying the Baconian method to
the mind, John Locke, the great English philosopher, declared that
everything which passes through the mind is a legitimate object of
mental philosophy, and that these mental phenomena are as real and valid
as the objects of any other science. In his investigations of the origin
of phenomena Locke departed from the Baconian requirement that it was
first necessary to make a natural history of facts. The mind was
regarded by Locke to be blank until experience is inscribed upon it.
Thus the mind is built up of received impressions plus reflection. The
soul Locke believed to be incapable of apprehension of Deity, and man's
realization or cognition of God to be merely an inference of the
reasoning faculty. David Hume was the most enthusiastic and also the
most powerful of the disciples of Locke.
Attacking Locke's
sensationalism, Bishop George Berkeley substituted for it a philosophy
founded on Locke's fundamental premises but which he developed as a
system of idealism. Berkeley held that ideas are the real objects of
knowledge. He declared it impossible to adduce proof that sensations are
occasioned by material objects; he also attempted to prove that matter
has no existence. Berkeleianism holds that the universe is permeated and
governed by mind. Thus the belief in the existence of material objects
is merely a mental condition, and the objects themselves may well be
fabrications of the mind. At the same time Berkeley considered it worse
than insanity to question the accuracy of the perceptions; for if the
power of the perceptive faculties be questioned man is reduced to a
creature incapable of knowing, estimating, or realizing anything
whatsoever.
In the Associationalism
of Hartley and Hume was advanced the theory that the association of
ideas is the fundamental principle of psychology and the explanation for
all mental phenomena. Hartley held that if a sensation be repeated
several times there is a tendency towards its spontaneous repetition,
which may be awakened by association with some other idea even though
the object causing the original reaction be absent. The
Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, Archdeacon Paley, and James and
John Stuart Mill declares that to be the greatest good which is the most
useful to the greatest number. John Stuart Mill believed that if it is
possible through sensation to secure knowledge of the properties
of things, it is also possible through a higher state of the mind--that
is, intuition or reason--to gain a knowledge of the true substance of
things.
Darwinism is the
doctrine of natural selection and physical evolution. It has been said
of Charles Robert Darwin that he determined to banish spirit altogether
from the universe and make the infinite and omnipresent Mind itself
synonymous with the all-pervading powers of an impersonal Nature.
Agnosticism and Neo-Hegelianism are also noteworthy
products of this period of philosophic thought. The former is the belief
that the nature of ultimates is unknowable; the latter an English and
American revival of Hegel's idealism.
Dr. W. J. Durant declares that
Herbert Spencer's Great Work, First Principles, made him almost
at once the most famous philosopher of his time. Spencerianism is
a philosophic positivism which describes evolution as an ever-increasing
complexity with equilibrium as its highest possible state. According to
Spencer, life is a continuous process from homogeneity to heterogeneity
and back from heterogeneity to homogeneity. Life also involves the
continual adjustment of internal relations to external relations. Most
famous of all Spencer's aphorisms is his definition of Deity: "God is
infinite intelligence, infinitely diversified through infinite time and
infinite space, manifesting through an infinitude of ever-evolving
individualities." The universality of the law of evolution was
emphasized by Spencer, who applied it not only to the form but also to
the intelligence behind the form. In every manifestation of being he
recognized the fundamental tendency of unfoldment from simplicity to
complexity, observing that when the point of equilibrium is reached it
is always followed by the process
of dissolution. According to Spencer, however, disintegration took place
only that reintegration might follow upon a higher level of
being.
A CHRISTIAN
TRINITY.
From Hone's Ancient
Mysteries Described.
In an effort to set forth in an
appropriate figure the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, it was
necessary to devise an image in which the three persons--Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost--were separate and yet one. In different parts of Europe
may be seen figures similar to the above, wherein three faces are united
in one head. This is a legitimate method of for to those able to realize
the sacred significance of the threefold head a great mystery is
revealed. However, in the presence of such applications of symbology in
Christian art, it is scarcely proper to consider the philosophers of
other faiths as benighted if, like the Hindus, they have a three-faced
Brahma, or, like the Romans, a two-faced Janus.
The chief position in the
Italian school of philosophy should be awarded to Giordano Bruno, who,
after enthusiastically accepting Copernicus' theory that the sun is the
center of the solar system, declared the sun to be a star and all the
stars to be suns. In Bruno's time the earth was regarded as the center
of all creation. Consequently when he thus relegated the world and man
to an obscure corner in space the effect was cataclysmic. For the heresy
of affirming a multiplicity of universes and conceiving Cosmos to be so
vast that no single creed could fill it, Bruno paid the forfeit of his
life.
Vicoism is a philosophy
based upon the conclusions of Giovanni Battista Vico, who held that God
controls His world not miraculously but through natural law. The laws by
which men rule themselves, Vico declared, issue from a spiritual source
within mankind which is en rapport with the law of the Deity.
Hence material law is of divine origin and reflects the dictates of the
Spiritual Father. The philosophy of Ontologism developed by
Vincenzo Gioberti (generally considered more as a theologian than a
philosopher) posits God as the only being and the origin of all
knowledge, knowledge being identical with Deity itself. God is
consequently called Being; all other manifestations are existences.
Truth is to be discovered through reflection upon this
mystery.
The most important of modern
Italian philosophers is Benedetto Croce, a Hegelian idealist. Croce
conceives ideas to be the only reality. He is anti-theological in his
viewpoints, does not believe in the immortality of the soul, and seeks
to substitute ethics and aesthetics for religion. Among other branches
of Italian philosophy should be mentioned Sensism
(Sensationalism), which posits the sense perceptions as the sole
channels for the reception of knowledge; Criticism, or the
philosophy of accurate judgment; and Neo-Scholasticism, which is
a revival of Thomism encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church.
The two outstanding schools of
American philosophy are Transcendentalism and Pragmatism.
Transcendentalism, exemplified in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
emphasizes the power of the transcendental over the physical. Many of
Emerson's writings show pronounced Oriental influence, particularly his
essays on the Oversoul and the Law of Compensation. The theory of
Pragmatism, while not original with Professor William James, owes its
widespread popularity as a philosophic tenet to his efforts. Pragmatism
may be defined as the doctrine that the meaning and nature of things are
to be discovered from consideration of their consequences. The true,
according to James, "is only an expedient in the way of our thinking,
just as 'the right' is only an expedient in the way of our behaving."
(See his Pragmatism.) John Dewey, the Instrumentalist, who
applies the experimental attitude to all the aims of life, should be
considered a commentator of James. To Dewey, growth and change are
limitless and no ultimates are postulated. The long residence in America
of George Santayana warrants the listing of this great Spaniard among
the ranks of American philosophers. Defending himself with the shield of
skepticism alike from the illusions of the senses and the cumulative
errors of the ages, Santayana seeks to lead mankind into a more
apprehending state denominated by him the life of
reason.
(In addition to the authorities
already quoted, in the preparation of the foregoing abstract of the main
branches of philosophic thought the present writer has had recourse to
Stanley's History of Philosophy; Morell's An Historical and
Critical View of the Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth
Century; Singer's Modern Thinkers and Present Problems;
Rand's Modern Classical Philosophers; Windelband's History of
Philosophy; Perry's Present Philosophical Tendencies;
Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic; and Durant's The
Story of Philosophy.)
Having thus traced the more or
less sequential development of philosophic speculation from Thales to
James and Bergson, it is now in order to direct the reader's attention
to the elements leading to and the circumstances attendant upon the
genesis of philosophic thinking. Although the Hellenes proved themselves
peculiarly responsive to the disciplines of philosophy, this science of
sciences should not be considered indigenous to them. "Although some of
the Grecians," writes Thomas Stanley, "have challenged to their nation
the original of philosophy, yet the more learned of them have
acknowledged it [to be] derived from the East." The magnificent
institutions of Hindu, Chaldean, and Egyptian learning must be
recognized as the actual source of Greek wisdom. The last was patterned
after the shadow cast by the sanctuaries of Ellora, Ur, and Memphis upon
the thought substance of a primitive people. Thales, Pythagoras, and
Plato in their philosophic wanderings contacted many distant cults and
brought back the lore of Egypt and the inscrutable Orient.
From indisputable facts such as
these it is evident that philosophy emerged from the religious Mysteries
of antiquity, not being separated from religion until after the decay of
the Mysteries. Hence he who would fathom the depths of philosophic
thought must familiarize himself with the teachings of those initiated
priests designated as the first custodians of divine revelation. The
Mysteries claimed to be the guardians of a transcendental knowledge so
profound as to be incomprehensible save to the most exalted intellect
and so potent as to be revealed with safety only to those in whom
personal ambition was dead and who had consecrated their lives to the
unselfish service of humanity. Both the dignity of these sacred
institutions and the validity of their claim to possession of Universal
Wisdom are attested by the most illustrious philosophers of antiquity,
who were themselves initiated into the profundities of the secret
doctrine and who bore witness to its efficacy.
The question may legitimately
be propounded: If these ancient mystical institutions were of such
"great pith and moment," why is so little information now available
concerning them and the arcana they claimed to possess? The answer is
simple enough: The Mysteries were secret societies, binding their
initiates to inviolable secrecy, and avenging with death the betrayal of
their sacred trusts. Although these schools were the true inspiration of
the various doctrines promulgated by the ancient philosophers, the
fountainhead of those doctrines was never revealed to the profane.
Furthermore, in the lapse of time the teachings became so inextricably
linked with the names of their disseminators that the actual but
recondite source--the Mysteries--came to be wholly ignored.
Symbolism is the language of
the Mysteries; in fact it is the language not only of mysticism and
philosophy but of all Nature, for every law and power active in
universal procedure is manifested to the limited sense perceptions of
man through the medium of symbol. Every form existing in the diversified
sphere of being is symbolic of the divine activity by which it is
produced. By symbols men have ever sought to communicate to each other
those thoughts which transcend the limitations of language. Rejecting
man-conceived dialects as inadequate and unworthy to perpetuate divine
ideas, the Mysteries thus chose symbolism as a far more ingenious and
ideal method of preserving their transcendental knowledge. In a single
figure a symbol may both reveal and conceal, for to the wise the subject
of the symbol is obvious, while to the ignorant the figure remains
inscrutable. Hence, he who seeks to unveil the secret doctrine of
antiquity must search for that doctrine not upon the open pages of books
which might fall into the hands of the unworthy but in the place where
it was originally concealed.
Far-sighted were the initiates
of antiquity. They realized that nations come and go, that empires rise
and fall, and that the golden ages of art, science, and idealism are
succeeded by the dark ages of superstition. With the needs of posterity
foremost in mind, the sages of old went to inconceivable extremes to
make certain that their knowledge should be preserved. They engraved it
upon the face of mountains and concealed it within the measurements of
colossal images, each of which was a geometric marvel. Their knowledge
of chemistry and mathematics they hid within mythologies which the
ignorant would perpetuate, or in the spans and arches of their temples
which time has not entirely obliterated. They wrote in characters that
neither the vandalism of men nor the ruthlessness of the elements could
completely efface, Today men gaze with awe and reverence upon the mighty
Memnons standing alone on the sands of Egypt, or upon the strange
terraced pyramids of Palanque. Mute testimonies these are of the lost
arts and sciences of antiquity; and concealed this wisdom must remain
until this race has learned to read the universal
language--SYMBOLISM.
The book to which this is the
introduction is dedicated to the proposition that concealed within the
emblematic figures, allegories, and rituals of the ancients is a secret
doctrine concerning the inner mysteries of life, which doctrine has been
preserved in toto among a small band of initiated minds since the
beginning of the world. Departing, these illumined philosophers left
their formulæ that others, too, might attain to understanding. But, lest
these secret processes fall into uncultured hands and be perverted, the
Great Arcanum was always concealed in symbol or allegory; and those who
can today discover its lost keys may open with them a treasure house of
philosophic, scientific, and religious truths.
THE ORPHIC
EGG.
From Bryant's An Analysis of
Ancient Mythology.
The ancient symbol of the
Orphic Mysteries was the serpent-entwined egg, which signified Cosmos as
encircled by the fiery Creative Spirit. The egg also represents the soul
of the philosopher; the serpent, the Mysteries. At the time of
initiation the shell is broke. and man emerges from the embryonic state
of physical existence wherein he had remained through the fetal period
of philosophic regeneration.
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