Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-07-24
Lectures OH Philosophy.
PROFESSOR HAVEN s THIRD LECTURE 7
AT THE CHRISTIAN UNION Rooms.
An Interesting Rerie'c Of the Eleotio
and ,Sophtstic Schools.

Professor Joseph Haven, IL. D.,
delivered the third lecture of the phil
osophical series at the Christian Union
lecture room yesterday afternoon, upon
the Eleatic and Sophistic schools, con-
cludine his review of the pre-Socratic
period. Of the former DIR. Haven
said he would select Zeno, of Flea,
from which place the school took its
name, as the chief representative, as
he was its most prominent teacher
The system of Zeno is essentially that
of Parmenides, which he took up and
defended, his principal weapon being
the rcducfio od abswdum. The doc
trine of Parmenides was that Of unity.
Zeno maintained this by showing the
absurlity Of the theory OF multiplicity.
Like all the Eleatics, Zeno took posi-
ton against the credibiiity of the evil
dence of the senses. denied the real
ity of sensible appearance. More
strictly speaking, he doubted not the
appearances or perceptions themselves,
but that the external world correspond
ed with appearances. He denied that
the existence Of any reality could be
proved by impressions upon, or appear
ances to, the senses. Space, and mo-
ton in space, he held to be impossible.
He said to Pythagoras ''You say
space exists. "Yes' "Well, in
what part of space does space exist?'
and to this there was no reply.
Zeno's doctrine was that space was
only conception Of the mind. as to
motion his demonstration was this.
If body moves, before it reaches the
end of the line which it traverses it
must pass the middle point. Suppose
the line to be travorsed be an inch.
Before moving the inch the body must
first pass the half inch point. Be-
fore traversing the half inch it must
pass the quarter inch point, or the half
inch is divided into halves; each of
these parts into halves, and SO infinite
". But before you can move the least
possible distance you must first move
half that distance. Now when will
you start Again, he illustrated the
impossibllity of motion by the race be-
tween Achilles and the tortoise. Sup
pose the tortoise to have thousand
PAGES the start, and to travel one pace
to Achilles ten PAGES. The demon
stration is that Achilles would never
overtake the tortoise While Achilles
passes over the thousand PAGES, the
tortoise will have gone hundred PAGES
urther; while he passes over the hunt
dred it will have gone ten PAGES further
and so indefinitely The answer tn
this was given by Aristotle, that times
as well as space, was forever divisIble,
so that somewhere in time the division
would be exactly equal with those ir
space that motion and rest are one foo
body in motion, at some instant res,
at each point in the space traversed.
1t is at rest, then, at every point on
the line; therefore body in motion
is at rest all the while. These may
seem to us absurlities. You say at
once this reasoning is fallacious but
the tallacies are such that it has never
been shown in what part of the reason
ing the fallacy consists. The speaker
said he would not, however, have his
hearers think that Zeno was a mere
Sopkist, though the result Of his school
was skepticism. His object was to set
men to thinking and to teach the dis
tinction between knowledge derived
through the sences and the higher
knowledge derived through thought.
As to the Deity, the doctrine Of Zeno
was: Gcd is eternal and He is one.
The Sophist arose at a later period
and may be regarded as a natural re-
suit of the times and of the preced-
ing school. The influence of preced
ing schools has led to the rejecting of
the traditions Of Greek mythology,
and men demanded the movable.
The conceited, fippant, and arrogant,