ELEATIC SCHOOL
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ELEATIC SCHOOL
renouncing it as unattainable. Its position may be appreciated by comparing it witli the modern schemes of Molesdiott, Herbert Spencer, and Comte. It took note only of the temporal and perishable side of the nniverse, and estaldished a foundation for its reason- ings by supposing tiie eternity and indestructibility of tiie elementary constituents of matter.
Ksa3 inunortali primordia corjioi'e dobent, IM^solvi quo (Ilia; iiie supremo tempore piis.-;int, JIateries ut supp^'ditet rebus reparaiideis.
Thus tlie two branches of the school, or the two schools, starting from the same point, but pursuing di- Ycrgent courses, arrived at exactlj^ opposite conclu- sions. The Eleatics disregarded the sensible, the Epi- cureans the divine element; the former contemplated the imperishable, the latter the perishable aspects of the universe. But neither denied what they re- nounced. In the present article, the Eleatic School proper will alone be considered ; for a notice of the other branch, reference is made to the title Epicurean
PjIILOS(11*HY.
Historii of the Eleatic Philosophy. — The shadowy and impalpable character of the Eleatic doctrine renders it ' peculiarly difhcult of determination, because it admits of many modilications, and of a great varietj' of expo- sitions and limitations. Another difficulty arises from the fact that the sources of our knowledge are confined to a few metrical fragments of Xenophanes and Par- menides, to the statements of their adversaries, Plato and Aristotle, to Diogenes Laertius, who is by no means a reliable witness, and to a few other relics of antiquity. There is, consequently, more uncertainty in regard to the tenets of this school, and to the inter- pretation given to them by their advocates, than in regard to any other of the Greek sects except the Pj'- thagorean. After all the diligence of Fiilleborn, Bran- dis, Karsten, Cousin, and other inquirers, there is much doubt whether we are ascribing to the Eleatic leaders positions which they deliberately held, or are imposing our own conjectural interpretations upon their doc- trines. The general complexion of the school is, how- ever, readily recognized.
The Eleatic School is rather united by a common principle than by agreement in the application of the princii>le (v. Aristotle, Metajjhysica, i, v). Each distin- guished philosopher of the sect creates his own scheme, and differs in procedure and in doctrine from the rest : hence it is impracticable to give a.ny general exposi- tion which will be true for its whole development, and it therefore becomes necessary to consider the peculiar modifications which it assumed in the hands of its suc- cessive teachers. The principal expounders of the Eleatic jihilosophy were Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno. and Melipus: the first of these was its founder. The period during which the}- flourisiied may be con- sidered to extend over the century preceding the Pelo- ponnesian War. But tlie chronological data are con- fused and uncertain.
Xenophanes. — Xenophanes of Colophon, in Asia Mi- nor, an exile from his native land, migrated to Sicily, and may have resided in Elea, whose foundation he celebrated in verse. The dates are uncertain ; but Cousin, in an elaborate essaj', fixes his birth in the 40th Olymjiiad (B.C. G20-61(i), and he lived nearly a century. His philosophy was presented in a metrical form in his poem On Nature, of which fragments re- main, though tliej' are too broken and obscure to give any clear revelation of his tenets. His leading doc- trines, as far as they can now be ascertained, appear to have constituted an indistinct, confused, and unde- veloped idealism, remarkable at the jjeriod of their introduction, l)Ut requiring expansion and rectification before they could be arranged in anj' harmonious S3'S- tem. They are rather germs of thought than pi'ecise principles. They needed the ,acute logical intellect of Parmenides to give them consistency, as the So- cratic speculations received definite form from Plato.
Parmenides probably deviated as far from the simple reveries of Xenophanes as Plato did from tiie practical maxims of Socrates. Xenophanes apparently adopted from Pythagoras, either directly or indirectly, the con- viction that there must be an ultimate term of being, which was not the sensible universe, but the divine intelligence. But Pythagoras distinguished between God and nature ; while Xenophanes, by exaggerating, confused this distinction, and resolved everything into a single divine essence. He denied all beginning, and therefore denied that anything could become what it had not ahvaj's been. The doctrine ex nihilo nihil Jit had with him a broader and deeper significance tiian it received from Epicurus, and his Iloman expos- itor, Lucretius. If nothing commences and notliing becomes, then all things are eternal, and all things are one. The unity of the Godliead is thus asserted against polj'theism; the individualitj' of the Deity against the dualism of conflicting forces. This antag- onism to the current creed and prevalent speculations is developed in his attacks on Homer, Hesiod, and the whole Hellenic mythology, and l)y his earnest repudia- tion of all anthropomorphism. The substantial reality of the sensible world is necessarily rejected : God and the universe are identified, and a close approximation is made to Spinozism, though not without essential differences. The onl}^ reality is the divine intelli- gence, oiifiiravTCi r£ dvca vovv Kcii <piHn'i]uiv (Diogenes Laert. ix, xix). Everj'thing cognizable by the human senses represents merely the accidents and shows of things. The sensible world is in an unceasing flux, but the divine essence is unchanging, unchangeable, unmoving, incapaljle of being moved, impassive, eter- nal, infinite, though possessing spherical dimensions, uncom pounded, one {cuciov-UTTHOOv-Tiav-uv-'iv-iii- rpiov - dKiv)]TOP - dv<l)Svpov - uvu\yr}TOV - iivoaoi' - ovre (Tepoiovj.uvoi' ticii,oi'TS {.nyvvixn'ov «\\(;j, Aristot. De Xenoph. i: "unum esse omnia, neque id esse mutabile, et id esse Deum, necpie natum umquam, et sempiter- num, conglobata figura," Cicavo, Acad. Pr.W, xxxvii.). All change is but apparent — the restless play of colors on the surface of the immutable Existence — the inces- sant agitation of the waves on the bosom of the bound- less and unalterable deep. There is no denial of the actuality of sensible facts and changes ; there is a de- nial of tlieir reality ; thej' are shadows of the eternal, the mists and vapors that disguise and conceal the in- finite One.