mation is far too scanty to enable us to bring the fragments of their teaching into a perfectly satisfactory context,' granting that enough is known to evidence one and the same tendency in all these thinkers. It may then be assumed as probable, that the Megarians did not confine themselves to those logical subtleties which are known to us; our notices are, however, too deficient for us to be able to attribute others to them with anything like certainty.2 A peculiar position in the Megarian philosophy is that occupied by Stilpo. Ever ready to defend the teaching of the School at the head of which he stood, clinging to universal conceptions, maintaining the impossibility of becoming, the unity of being,3 and the difference between sensuous and rational perceptions, he at the same time combines with his Megarian views theories and aims which originally belonged to the Cynics. In the first place he rejected, as did An 1 Ritter's (Rh. Mus. ii. 310, Gesch. der. Phil. ii. 140) conjectures seem in many respects to go beyond historical probability, and beyond the spirit of the Megarian teaching. To illustrate this here would take too long. 2 Prantl, p. 43, believes that the majority of the sophisms enumerated by Aristotle really belong to the Megarians. Most of them, however, would appear to come from the Sophists; in proof of which a reference may be made to Plato's Euthydemus, which can hardly have the Megarians in view. Towards Euclid Plato would not have used such lan- 3 See pp. 260, 3; 263, 4. 4 Compare the passage in Aristocles quoted p. 259, 1, in which οἱ περὶ Στίλπωνα καὶ τοὺς Μεγαρικούς are spoken of in addition to the Eleatics. CHAP. XII. (6) That of Stilpo, which adopted the cate re CHAP. XII. tisthenes, every combination of subject and predicate, since the conception of the one is different from the conception of the other, and two things with different conceptions can never be declared to be the same.1 The doctrine of the unity of being,2 in as far as it can be shown to have originated with Stilpo, may be deduced as a corollary from this view; for if nothing can be predicated of anything else, it follows that being can alone be predicated of itself. Truly cynical are also Stilpo's moral principles. The captious logic to which other Megarians devoted themselves with speculative onesidedness, to the entire neglect of the ethical element,3 was also a charac γὰρ βιωσόμεθα, μὴ λέγοντες ἄν- Stilpo's assertion as a mere joke. The same proof is given by Simpl. Phys. 26, a. : διὰ δὲ τὴν περὶ ταῦτα (the distinction between the different categories and the ambiguity of words) ἄγνοιαν καὶ οἱ Μεγαρικοὶ κληθέντες φιλόσοφοι λαβόντες ὡς ἐναργῆ πρότασιν, ὅτι ὧν οἱ λόγοι ἕτεροι ταῦτα ἕτερά ἐστι καὶ ὅτι τὰ ἕτερα κεχώρισται ἀλλήλων, ἐδόκουν δεικνύναι αὐτὸν αὑτοῦ κεχωρισμένον ἕκαστον: i.e. since the conception of Σωκράτης μουσικὸς is a different one to that of Σωκράτης λευκός, the one according to Megarian hypothesis must be a different person to the other. 2 See p. 263. 3 Excepting Euclid's doctrine of the oneness of virtue, nothing bearing on Ethics is known as belonging to the Megarians. CHAP. XII. apathy. teristic of Stilpo;' and perhaps it is only an accident that no captious assertion or discovery of his is on record. His character, however, is not only always The highest mentioned by biographers with the greatest respect," good but many traits are recorded of him, which identify placed in his morality with that of the Cynics. The highest good he placed in that apathy, which forbids the feeling of pain even to exist. The wise man is required to be in himself independent, and not even to stand in need of friends to secure happiness.3 When Demetrius Poliorcetes enquired after his losses by the plunder of Megara, he gave for answer that he had seen no one carrying off his knowledge. When reminded of the immoral life of his daughter, he rejoined, that if he could not bring honour on her, she could not bring disgrace on him.5 Banishment he 1 See Chrysipp. in Plut. Sto. Rep. 10, 11, p. 1036, and pp. 211, 2; 210, 6. 2 See p. 251, note 3. 3 Sen. Ep. 9, 1:‘An merito reprehendat in quadam epistola Epicurus eos, qui dicunt sapientem se ipso esse contentum et propter hoc amico non indigere desideras scire. Hoc objicitur Stilboni ab Epicuro et iis, quibus summum bonum visum est animus impatiens.' And a little further on: Hoc inter nos et illos interest: noster sapiens vincit quidem incommodum omne sed sentit; illorum ne sentit quidem.' Connected herewith is the observation of Stilpo in Teles. in Stob. Floril. 103, 83, in order to warn from excessive grief 4 at the death of relatives. 4 Plutarch, Demet. c. 9; would not allow to be an evil. To be independent of everything without, and to be absolutely free from wants-this highest standard of Cynicism for the wise man—was also his ideal. And lastly, the free attitude towards religion adopted by the Cynics was also shared by him, and finds expression in many of his utterances.2 Whether, and if so, in what way, he attempted to set up a logical connection between the Cynic and Megarian theories, we are not told. In itself, such a task was not difficult. With the assertion that no subject can admit a predicate, Euclid's hostile attitude towards proof by analogy is closely related; this too rests on the general proposition that things dissimilar cannot be compared. It is also quite in harmony with the negative criticism of the Megarians; and if Euclid denied to the good any form of manifoldness, others might add, as Antisthenes really did, that the one and not the manifold could alone exist. Moreover from the oneness of the good the apathy of the wise man might be deduced, by considering that all else besides the good is unreal and indifferent.3 The denial of the popular faith was also involved in the doctrine of the one, even as it was first taught by Xenophanes. In the Cynic element as adopted by In the fragment in Stob. 2 According to Diog. ii. 116, these subjects could not be discussed in the street. The story in Plut. Prof. in Virt. 12, p. 83, of the dream in which he conversed with Poseidon is apparently invented to justify his omission to sacrifice. 3 Conf. Diog. ii. 106, and p. 263, 3. Stilpo, there were not wanting, it is true, points of approach to the Megarians, but it was a deviation from the original form of the Megarian teaching to allow explicitly such an element to exist. CHAP. XII. Eretrian Closely connected with the Megarian school is II. Eleanthe Elean-Eretrian, respecting which, however, very School. little information has reached us. Its founder A. Its was Phædo of Elis, the well-known favourite of history. 1 See Preller's Phædo's Life and Writings, Rhein. Mus. für Philol. iv. 391. Phædo, the scion of a noble Elean family, had been taken captive not long before the death of Socrates, probably 400 or 401 B.C. Preller concludes from Phædo, 89, B., that he was not eighteen years of age at the time of the death of Socrates; it may, however, be asked whether Phædo followed Athenian customs in his dress. He was employed as a slave in most humiliating services at Athens, until one of Socrates' friends (besides Crito, Cebes and Alcibiades are both mentioned, the latter certainly not being at Athens at the time, and probably not being alive) redeemed him at the intercession of Socrates. See Diog. ii. 31, 105; Suid. under paidwv; and Hesych. Vir Illustr. Þaídwv; Gell. N. A. ii. 18; Macrob. Sat. i. 11; Lact. Inst. iii. 25, 15; Orig. c. Cels. iii. 67; Cic. N. D. i. 33, 93; Athen. xi. 507, c. Preller not improbably finds the source of the story in Hermippus, περὶ τῶν διαπρεψάνεων ἐν παιδείᾳ δούλων. Grote (Plato, iii. 503) objects to this story, that no conquest of Elis took place at that time, whereas Diog. says of Phædo: ovνεάλω τῇ πατρίδι. He therefore infers that Mλios should be read for 'Hλeîos in Diog. ii. 105. Yet Phædo is called an Elean by both Gell. 1. c. and Strabo, ix. 1, 8, p. 393, and his school called Elean. If Elis itself did not fall into an enemy's hand, its suburbs were occupied by the Spartan army in the Elean-Spartan war, probably in the spring of 408 B.C. (Xen. Hell. iii. 2, 21, and Preller, on the passage, Curtius, Gr. Gesch. iii. 149. 757.) Phædo appears to have been taken captive at that time. Most probably Phædo left Athens on the death of Socrates. But whether he at once returned home, or repaired with others to Euclid at Megara, is unknown. Diog. ii. 105, mentions two genuine and four spurious dialogues of his. His Zopyrus is even quoted by Pollux, iii. 18, and the Antiatheista in Bekker's Anecdot. i. 107. Panætius seems to have had doubts as to all the treatises passing under his name, Diog. ii. 64. He is called by Gellius 'philo |