referred to him as "the mind of the school." If Aristotle were absent from the lectures, Plato would say: "The intellect is not here." Of the prodigious genius of Aristotle, Thomas Taylor writes in his introduction to The Metaphysics:
"When we consider that he was not only well acquainted with every science, as his works abundantly evince, but that he wrote on almost every subject which is comprehended in the circle of human knowledge, and this with matchless accuracy and skill, we know not which to admire most, the penetration or extent of his mind."
Of the philosophy of Aristotle, the same author says: "The end of Aristotle's moral philosophy is perfection through the virtues, and the end of his contemplative philosophy an union with the one principle of all things."
THE PROBLEM OF DIVERSITY.
From Kircher's Ars Magna Sciendi.
In the above diagram Kircher arranges eighteen objects in two vertical columns and then determines the number of arrangements in which they can be combined. By the same method Kircher further estimates that fifty objects may be arranged in 1,273,726,838,815,420,339,851,343,083,767,005,515,293,749,454,795,408,000,000,000,000 combinations. From this it will be evident that infinite diversity is possible, for the countless parts of the universe may be related to each other in an incalculable number of ways; and through the various combinations of these limitless subdivisions of being, infinite individuality and infinite variety must inevitably result. Thus it is further evident that life can never become monotonous or exhaust the possibilities of variety.
Aristotle conceived philosophy to be twofold: practical and theoretical. Practical philosophy embraced ethics and politics; theoretical philosophy, physics and logic. Metaphysics he considered to be the science concerning that substance which has the principle of motion and rest inherent to itself. To Aristotle the soul is that by which man first lives, feels, and understands. Hence to the soul he assigned three faculties: nutritive, sensitive, and intellective. He further considered the soul to be twofold -- rational and irrational -- and in some particulars elevated the sense perceptions above the mind. Aristotle defined wisdom as the science of first Causes. The four major divisions of his philosophy are dialectics, physics, ethics, and metaphysics. God is defined as the First Mover, the Best of beings, an immovable Substance, separate from sensible things, void of corporeal quantity, without parts and indivisible.
Platonism is based upon a priori reasoning; Aristotelianism upon a posteriori reasoning. Aristotle taught his pupil, Alexander the Great, to feel that if he had not done a good deed he had not reigned that day.
Among his followers were Theophrastus, Strato, Lyco, Aristo, Critolaus, and Diodorus.
Of Skepticism as propounded by Pyrrho of Elis (365-275 B.C.) and by Timon, Sextus Empiricus said that those who seek must find or deny they have found or can find, or persevere in the inquiry. Those who suppose they have found truth are called Dogmatists; those who think it incomprehensible are the
Academics; those who still seek are the Skeptics. The attitude of Skepticism towards the knowable is summed up by Sextus Empiricus in the following words: "But the chief ground of Skepticism is that to every reason there is an opposite reason equivalent, which makes us forbear to dogmatize." The Skeptics were strongly opposed to the Dogmatists and were agnostic in that they held the accepted theories regarding Deity to be self-contradictory and undemonstrable. "How," asked the Skeptic, "can we have indubitate knowledge of God, knowing not His substance, form or place; for, while philosophers disagree irreconcilably on these points, their conclusions cannot be considered as undoubtedly true?" Since absolute knowledge was considered unattainable, the Skeptics declared the end of their discipline to be: "In opinionatives, indisturbance; in impulsives, moderation; and in disquietives, suspension."
The sect of the Stoics was founded by Zeno (340-265 B.C.), the Cittiean, who studied under Crates the Cynic, from which sect the Stoics had their origin. Zeno was succeeded by Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Zeno of Tarsis, Diogenes, Antipater, Panaetius, and Posidonius. Most famous of the Roman Stoics are Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The Stoics were essentially pantheists, since they maintained that as there is nothing better than the world, the world is God. Zeno declared that the reason of the world is diffused throughout it as seed. Stoicism is a materialistic philosophy, enjoining voluntary resignation to natural law. Chrysippus maintained that good and evil being contrary, both are necessary since each sustains the other. The soul was regarded as a body distributed throughout the physical form and subject to dissolution with it. Though some of the Stoics held that wisdom prolonged the existence of the soul, actual immortality is not included in their tenets. The soul was said to be composed of eight parts: the five senses, the generative power, the vocal power, and an eighth, or hegemonic, part. Nature was defined as God mixed throughout the substance of the world. All things were looked upon as bodies either corporeal or incorporeal.
Meekness marked the attitude of the Stoic philosopher. While Diogenes was delivering a discourse against anger, one of his listeners spat contemptuously in his face. Receiving the insult with humility, the great Stoic was moved to retort: "I am not angry, but am in doubt whether I ought to be so or not!"
Epicurus of Samos (341-270 B.C.) was the founder of the Epicurean sect, which in many respects resembles the Cyrenaic but is higher in its ethical standards. The Epicureans also posited pleasure as the most desirable state, but conceived it to be a grave and dignified state achieved through renunciation of those mental and emotional inconstancies which are productive of pain and sorrow. Epicurus held that as the pains of the mind and soul are more grievous than those of the body, so the joys of the mind and soul exceed those of the body. The Cyrenaics asserted pleasure to be dependent upon action or motion; the Epicureans claimed rest or lack of action to be equally productive of pleasure. Epicurus accepted the philosophy of Democritus concerning the nature of atoms and based his physics upon this theory. The Epicurean philosophy may be summed up in four canons:
"(1) Sense is never deceived; and therefore every sensation and every perception of an appearance is true. (2) Opinion follows upon sense and is superadded to sensation, and capable of truth or falsehood,
(3) All opinion attested, or not contradicted by the evidence of sense, is true. (4) An opinion contradicted, or not attested by the evidence of sense, is false." Among the Epicureans of note were Metrodorus of Lampsacus, Zeno of Sidon, and Phaedrus.
Eclecticism may be defined as the practice of choosing apparently irreconcilable doctrines from antagonistic schools and constructing therefrom a composite philosophic system in harmony with the convictions of the eclectic himself. Eclecticism can scarcely be considered philosophically or logically sound, for as individual schools arrive at their conclusions by different methods of reasoning, so the philosophic product of fragments from these schools must necessarily be built upon the foundation of conflicting premises. Eclecticism, accordingly, has been designated the layman's cult. In the Roman Empire little thought was devoted to philosophic theory; consequently most of its thinkers were of the eclectic type. Cicero is the outstanding example of early Eclecticism, for his writings are a veritable potpourri of invaluable fragments from earlier schools of thought. Eclecticism appears to have had its inception at the moment when men first doubted the possibility of discovering ultimate truth. Observing all so-called knowledge to be mere opinion at best, the less studious furthermore concluded that the wiser course to pursue was to accept that which appeared to be the most reasonable of the teachings of any school or individual. From this practice, however, arose a pseudo-broadmindedness devoid of the element of preciseness found in true logic and philosophy.
The Neo-Pythagorean school flourished in Alexandria during the first century of the Christian Era. Only
