PHILOSOPHY
130
PHILOSOPHY
with greater precision, and broughl within narrower limits. The breaking up of the small Greek Btates had prepared the way for more comprehensive views of human fellowship, without destroying the fundamental truth of the necessitj of social union lor perfect life. But in the next generation this was lost. The wars of jsion obliterated the idea of society, and phi- losophy was content with aiming at individual happi- ness.
The coming change was indicated by the rise of a school of sceptics. The scepticism of the Sophists marked the close of the first period, and in like manner i In scepticism of the Pyrrhonists marks the close of the
s, nd (Stilpo, B.C.cir.290; Pyrrho, B.C. cir. 290). Bui
the Pyrrhonists rendered no positive Bervice to the cause of philosophy, as the Sophists did by the refinement of language. Their immediate influence was limited in its range, and it is only as a symptom that t lie rise of the school is important. But in this respect ii fore- shows the character of after-philosophy by denying the foundation of all higher speculations. Thus all interest was turned to questions of practical morality. Hitherto morality had been based as a science upon mental an- alysis, but by the Pyrrhonists it was made subservient to law and custom. Immediate experience was held to be the rule of life (comp. Hitter and Preller, § 350).
.",. Thi post-Socratic Schools. -After Aristotle, phi- losophy, as has already been noticed, took a new direc- tion. The S.ieratie schools were, as has been shown. connected by a common pursuit of the permanent ele- ment which underlies phenomena. Socrates placed vir- tue in action, truth in a knowledge of the ideas of things. Plato went farther, anil maintained thai these ideas are alone truly existent. Aristotle, though differing in term-, yet only followed in the same direction when he attributed to form, uot an independent existence, but a fashioning, vivifying power in all individual objects. But from this point speculation took a mainly personal direction. Philosophy, in the strict sense of the word, ceased to exist. This was due both to the circumstan- ces of the time and to the exhaustion consequent on the failure of the Socratio method to solve the deep myster- ies oi being. Aristotle had. indeed, laid the wide foun- dation- of an inductive system of physics, hut few were inclined to continue his work. The physical theories which were brought forward were merely adaptations from earlier philosophers.
In dealing with moral questions two opposite systems are possible, and have found advocates in all ages. I hi the one side n may be said that the character of actions is to be judged by their results; on the other, thai it is to he sought only in the actions themselves. Pleasure is the tesl of right in one case: an assumed or discovered law of our nature in the other. If the world were per- fect and tic- balance of human faculties undisturbed, ii
is evident that both systems would give identical results. As it i-. there is a tendency to error on each Bide, which is (dearly seen in the rival schools of the Epicureans and Stoic-. \\ lei practically divided the Suffrages of the maSS
of educated men in the centuries before and after the Christian asra.
Epicurus (B.C. 352 270) defined the object of phi- losophy to l.e the attainment of a happy life. The pursuit >'\' truth for its own sake he regarded as super- fluous. He rejected dialects as a useless study, and accepted the Benses, in the widest acceptation of the term, a- the criterion of truth. Physics he subordinated entirely to ethics (Cicero, De Fin. i. 7 i. I.ut he differed
widelj from thi' Cvrenaics in his view of happiness. The happine88 at which the wise man aim- i- to lie found, he said, not in momentary gratification, but in
lifelong pleasure. It does not i -i-t necessarily in ex- citement or tion. hut often in absolute tranquillity
lor. oi-. oil "The wise man is happy even on the
rack" (Diog. Laert \. 118), for "virtue alone is insep- arable from pleasure" (id. p. 138). I" live happily
and to live wisely, nohly, and justly, are Convertible
phrases (id. p. 140). But it followed as a corollary from his view of happiness that the gods, who were assumed to he supremely happy and eternal, were abso- lutely free from the distractions and emotion- conse- quent on any care for the world or man (id. p. 139; comp. Lucr. ii. 645 17). All thin-- were Bupposed to come into being by chance, and so pass away: and the study of nature was chiefly useful as dispelling the su- perstition- fear- of the god- and death by which the multitude are tormented. It i- obvious how BUCh teach- ing would degenerate in practice. The individual was hit master of his own life, free from all regard to any higher law than a refined selfishness.
While Epicurus asserted in thi- manner the claims of one part of man's nature in the conduit of life, Zeno of (ilium ( B.C. cir. 280), with equal partiality, advo- cated a purely spiritual (intellectual) morality. The opposition between the two was complete. The infinite, chance-formed worlds of the one stand over against the one harmonious world of the other. On the one side are gods regardless of material things, on the other a Being permeating and vivifying all creation. This dif- ference necessarily found its chief expression in ethics. For when the Stoics taught that there were only two principles of things, matter (rd iraa\ov), and God, fate, reason— for the names were many by which it was fash- ioned and quickened (rti jroioiiv) - it followed that the active principle in man is of divine origin, and that his duty is to live conformably to nature (to opoXoyov/iE- jiwi,- [-{7 tpvaei] Zrjv). By -nature" some understood the nature of man, others the nature of the universe; hut both agreed in regarding it as a general law of the whole, .and not particular pas-ion- or impulses, (iood. therefore, was hut one. All external things were in- different. Reason was the absolute sovereign of man.