6 future retribution;1 and even of this change traces 1 Comp. Zeller, Vol. I. 54, 388, 581, 654. 2 Besides Euripides (p. 19, 1), Melanippides (Fr. 6 in Bergk, Lyr. Gr. p. 982) appears to have regarded the soul as immortal. Io, too (Fr. 4 in Bergk, p. 464), appropriates the Pythagorean belief in immortality. A resolution of souls into æther may also be implied in the popular belief mentioned by Aristophanes (Peace, 832), that the dead become stars. See Euripid., Hippol. 949; Fr. 475; Plato, Laws, vi. 782, C., comparing therewith the principles of Empedocles and Pythagoras. Probably Eurip., Fr. 884, refers to this. Not A vow of holds up Hippolytus as a type 6 Φεύγω γένεσίν τε βροτῶν καὶ 5 That this was a part of Orphic perfection may be gathered from Euripides, who CHAP. I. CHAP. CHAPTER II. CHARACTER AND PROGRESS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY IN THE age 1 Conf. Plato, Rep. i. 330, D. mere effect; whilst under the influence of sophistry, philosophy had come to disbelieve, not only in individual systems, but also in the whole course of previous enquiry, and even in the possibility of knowledge at all. Far, however, from being exhausted hereby, the spirit of Greece was only completely delivered by the throes and struggles of the fifth century. Its mental horizon was widened; its thought was sharpened; its views and conceptions enriched. Its whole consciousness had gained a new field since its success in renowned exploits and glorious undertakings. If the meridian of classic art and of free political life was past towards the close of this period, still the newly-awakened culture of the understanding was full of intellectual promise for the future; for sophistry had been destructive, not constructive, only suggesting, not accomplishing. Some new and thorough change was called for to satisfy not only practical but also intellectual requirements. Ancient propriety of conduct, and the received philosophic teaching having been once ousted by the altered spirit of the times, simple return thereto became impossible. But to despair on this account of all knowledge, and of all principles of morality, was most precipitate. Allowing even that the received view of both was inadequate, it by no means followed, that all science, and all morality was impossible. On the contrary, the more the pernicious consequences of such a view were exposed, the more urgent became the duty of avoiding them by a thorough CHAP II. CHAP. A. Distinc tion of from pre- resting on transformation of the whole tone of feeling and thought, without, however, attempting the impossible task of simply restoring the past. For this purpose some new path must be struck out. What that path should be, a far-sighted eye could discern with sufficient clearness by the aid of the experience of the past. Traditional propriety of conduct had given way before the spirit of innovation, inasmuch as it rested upon instinct and custom, and not on any clear recognition of necessity. He who would undertake a permanent restoration of moral life must found it upon knowledge. Earlier philosophy had been unable to satisfy the requirements of the times, because it had been directed exclusively to a study of nature; because to the mass of men it did not give sufficient preliminary education for the work of life, nor to the thinking spirit any clue to the problem of its being and destiny. New philosophy must meet this want, must direct its attention to the sphere of mind and morals, and work into shape the ample supply of ethical ideas underlying religion, poetry and received custom. Earlier systems had succumbed before the doubts of sophistry, inasmuch as their method was too one-sided, depending too little on definite conceptions respecting the nature and problem of knowledge to be able to withstand a searching criticism which destroyed their several platforms by means of each other, and argued from the change and uncertainty of the phenomena of the senses that knowledge must be impossible. No building that would last could be erected except by laying the foundations deeper, except by finding some means of supplementing these several points of view by each other, of harmonising them when contradictory in some higher bond of union,1 and of grasping the unchangeable essence of things amid changing appearances. The means wanted was supplied by Dialectic, the art of forming conceptions, and the result was philosophical Idealism. Thus the knowledge of the faults and deficiencies in existing circumstances led naturally to the turn taken by philosophy after the time of Socrates. Scientific ethics became necessary because of the tottering of moral convictions; a wider enquiry, because of the narrowness of the philosophy of nature; a critical method, because of the contradiction of dogmatic systems; a philosophy of conceptions, because of the uncertainty of the observations of the senses; Idealism, because of the unsatisfactory nature of a materialistic view of the world. CHAP. II. pre-Socra Precisely these features distinguish the Socratic (2) The philosophy from that of the previous period. The tic philopre-Socratic philosophy was simply and solely a sophy a philosophy of nature; 2 the transitional philosophy of the Sophists was the first to leave nature for After Socrates ethical and dialectical questions. 1 Comp. Zeller's Phil. der Griechen, Part I. p. 854, 860. 2 In the sense given, Ibid. I. 155. study of nature; the Socra tic of conceptions. |