Part 16 (1/2)

This hatred and selfishness became the uppermost causes of action in the development of Greek social polity. Strife led to compromise, and this in turn to the recognition of the rights and privileges of different cla.s.ses.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. The Aegean culture.

2. The relation of Greek to Egyptian culture.

3. What were the great Greek masterpieces of (_a_) Literature, (_b_) Sculpture, (_c_) Architecture, (_d_) Art, (_e_) Philosophy?

4. Compare Greek democracy with American democracy.

5. What historical significance have Thermopylae, Marathon, Alexandria, Crete, and Delphi?

[1] Sergi, in his _Mediterranean Race_, says that they came from N. E.

Africa. Beginning about 5000 years B.C., they gradually infiltrated the whole Mediterranean region. This is becoming the general belief among ethnologists, archaeologists, and historians.

[2] Recent studies indicate that some of the Cretan inscriptions are prototypes of the Greece-Phoenician alphabet. The Phoenicians evidently derived the original characters of their alphabet from a number of sources. The Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet about 800-1000 B.C.

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CHAPTER XIII

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

_The Transition from Theology to Inquiry_.--The Greek theology prepared the way for the Ionian philosophy. The religious opinions led directly up to the philosophy of the early inquirers. The Greeks pa.s.sed slowly from accepting everything with a blind faith to the rational inquiry into the development of nature. The beginnings of knowing the scientific causes were very small, and sometimes ridiculous, yet they were of immense importance. To take a single step from the ”age of credulity” toward the ”age of reason” was of great importance to Greek progress. To cease to accept on faith the statements that the world was created by the G.o.ds, and ordered by the G.o.ds, and that all mysteries were in their hands, and to endeavor to find out by observation of natural phenomena something of the elements of nature, was to gradually break from the mythology of the past as explanatory of the creation. The first feeble attempt at this was to seek in a crude way the material structure and source of the universe.

_Explanation of the Universe by Observation and Inquiry_.--The Greek mind had settled down to the fact that there was absolute knowledge of truth, and that cosmogony had established the method of creation; that theogony had accounted for the creation of G.o.ds, heroes, and men, and that theology had foretold their relations. A blind faith had accepted what the imagination had pictured. But as geographical study began to increase, doubts arose as to the preconceived const.i.tution of the earth. As travel increased and it was found that none of the terrible creatures that tradition had created inhabited the islands of the sea or coasts of the mainland, earth lost its terrors and disbelief in the system of established {216} knowledge prevailed. Free inquiry was slowly subst.i.tuted for blind credulity.

This freedom of inquiry had great influence on the intellectual development of man. It was the discovery of truth through the relation of cause and effect, which he might observe by opening his eyes and using his reason. The development of theories of the universe through tradition and the imagination gave exercise to the emotions and beliefs; but change from faith in the fixity of the past to the future by observation led to intellectual development. The exercise of faith and the imagination even in unproductive ways prepared the way for broader service of investigation. But these standing alone could permit nothing more than a childish conception of the universe. They could not discover the reign of law. They could not advance the observing and reflecting powers of man; they could not develop the stronger qualities of his intellect. Individual action would be continually stultified by the process of accepting through credulity the trite sayings of the ancients. The attempt to find out how things were made was an acknowledgment of the powers of the individual mind.

It was a recognition that man has a mind to use, and that there is truth around him to be discovered. This was no small beginning in intellectual development.

_The Ionian Philosophy Turned the Mind Toward Nature_.--Greek philosophy began in the seventh century before Christ. The first philosopher of note was Thales, born at Miletus, in Asia Minor, about 640 B.C. Thales sought to establish the idea that water is the first principle and cause of the universe. He held that water is filled with life and soul, the essential element in the foundation of all nature.

Thales had great learning for his time, being well versed in geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy. He travelled in Egypt and the Orient, and became acquainted with ancient lore. It is said that being impressed with the importance of water in Egypt, where the Nile is the source of all life, he was led to a.s.sert the importance of water in animate nature. In his attempts to break away from the {217} old cosmogony, he still exhibits traces of the old superst.i.tions, for he regarded the sun and stars as living beings, who received their warmth and life from the ocean, in which they bathed at the time of setting. He held that the whole world was full of soul, manifested in individual daemons, or spirits. Puerile as his philosophy appears in comparison with the later development of Greek philosophy, it created violent antagonism with mythical theology and led the way to further investigation and speculation.

Anaximander, born at Miletus 611 B.C., an astronomer and geographer, following Thales chronologically, wrote a book on ”Nature,” the first written on the subject in the philosophy of Greece. He held that all things arose from the ”infinite,” a primordial chaos in which was an internal energy. From a universal mixture things arose by separation, the parts once formed remaining unchanged. The earth was cylindrical in shape, suspended in the air in the centre of the universe, and the stars and planets revolved around it, each fastened in a crystalline ring; the moon and sun revolved in the same manner, only at a farther distance. The generation of the universe was by the action of contraries, by heat and cold, the moist and the dry. From the moisture all things were originally generated by heat. Animals and men came from fishes by a process of evolution. There is evidence in his philosophy of a belief in the development of the universe by the action of heat and cold on matter. It is also evident that the principles of biology and the theory of evolution are hinted at by this philosopher.

Also, he was the first to observe the obliquity of the ecliptic; he taught that the moon received its light from the sun and that the earth is round.

Anaximenes, born at Miletus 588 B.C., a.s.serted that air was the first principle of the universe; indeed, he held that on it ”the very earth floats like a broad leaf.” He held that air was infinite in extent; that it touched all things, and was the source of life of all. The human soul was nothing but air, since life consists in inhaling and exhaling, and when this is no longer {218} continued death ensues.

Warmth and cold arose from rarefaction and condensation, and probably the origin of the sun and planets was caused by the rarefaction of air; but when air underwent great condensation, snow, water, and hail appeared, and, indeed, with sufficient condensation, the earth itself was formed. It was only a step further to suppose that the infinite air was the source of life, the G.o.d of the universe.

Somewhat later Diogenes of Apollonia a.s.serted that all things originated from one essence, and that air was the soul of the world, eternal and endowed with consciousness. This was an attempt to explain the development of the universe by a conscious power. It led to the suggestion of psychology, as the mind of man was conscious air. ”But that which has knowledge is what men call air; it is it that regulates all and governs all, and hence it is the use of air to pervade all, and to dispose all, and to be in all, for there is nothing that has not part in it.”

Other philosophers of this school reasoned or speculated upon the probable first causes in the creation. In a similar manner Herac.l.i.tus a.s.serted that fire was the first principle, and states as the fundamental maxim of his philosophy that ”all is convertible into fire, and fire into all.” There was so much confusion in his doctrines as to give him the name of ”The Obscure.” ”The moral system of Herac.l.i.tus was based on the physical. He held that heat developed morality, moisture immorality. He accounted for the wickedness of the drunkard by his having a moist soul, and inferred that a warm, dry soul was n.o.blest and best.”

Anaxagoras taught the mechanical processes of the universe, and advanced many theories of the origin of animal life and of material objects. Anaxagoras was a man of wealth, who devoted all of his time and means to philosophy. He recognized two principles, one material and the other spiritual, but failed to connect the two, and in determining causes he came into open conflict with the religion of the times, and a.s.serted that the ”divine miracles” were nothing more than natural {219} causes. He was condemned for his atheism and thrown into prison, but, escaping, he was obliged to end his days in exile.

Another notable example of the early Greek philosophy is found in Pythagoras, who a.s.serted that number was the first principle. He and his followers found that the ”whole heaven was a harmony of number.”

The Pythagoreans taught that all comes from one, but that the odd number is finite, the even infinite; that ten was a perfect number.

They sought for a criterion of truth in the relation of numbers.