The Portland daily press., 1885-11-26
THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
Rev. Or. Dalton's Third Wednesday
Lecture.

The lecturer begged the close attention of his
hearers, which would materially aid him in giving
and them in receiving, fair impression of the
most celebrated Greek philosophers, whose very
names are household words
The first of these great thinkers, Thales, enjoy
ed the distinction Of being numbered among the
seven wisest OF the ancients-"the seven wise
men of the world.' Indeed, to call man "a
philosopher" is to call him "a lover of wisdom
and wisdom according to the wise, consists in
knowing realities, rather than appearances and
the aim of philosophy is, to comprehend things as
they are, rather than as they seem. That things
are not always what they seem to the senses, is
evident from astronomy The primal purpose OF
philosophy then, is to discover the grounds OF all
existence. the substance behind all phenomena,
the unity from which all dlversties spring, and to
which tfev return. 1.-THE one" as distinguished
from ssthe many is the object OF It's scrutiny. To
recur to Thales, he said Il was moisture with
out which it is evident nothing can live, or grow.
Anaximenes replied that it was "air' the ALIEN
hracing, without which no animal or plant can
live it is the breath OF our noStras the breath OF
life Heraclitus said it was heat.v His idea
was similar to the modern doctrine that cheat is
mode of notion" Heat is life, cold is death.
Empedocles sought to reconcile all these by adj
ding ''earth' to fire, air and water 'ithe four ee-
ments' which, as he argued were all concerned
in creation. These were the leading ideas which
distinguished the Ionic School of Philosophers,
the oldest of ALL
The second school was the Eleatc whose found
er, was Xenophanes. This was the original OF all,
the later Pantheistic theories according to which
there is but one real substance, the grounds OF
whose existence are in itself, all else being ema-
nations or evolutons, from this 's0ne'', the source
and spring whence they flow. Next followed the
Atomists who held that the world was made up of
indivlsible and impenetrable atoms. Leucippus
was the founder of this, the last school of which
shall speak. 0fare those who preceded the still
fuis IS the first Of the three great divisions into
which the history of Ancient Philosophy falls, the
Ante Platonic, the Platonic proper and the POST
Platonic Pythagoras and AnaXagoras dwell apart,
like stars of the first magnitude, SHINING by tner
own light, and shedding portions OF it on all the
systems which succeeded them
THE PLAToNIC PHILOSOPHY.
This is the Philosophical the world ancient and
modern. Hence the title of Emerson's admirable
essay ''Plato, or the Philosopher" But great as
was Plato we owe him to Socrates and socra T
S0phists were not merely philosophers, or lovers
of WISDOM but themselves were wise and able
to make others wise. Socrates encountered
these vain pretenders to wisdom, and by sort OF
proud humility protested to sit at their feet only
to cover them with confusian, as he ptiiessly e1-
posed their ignorance and charatanism Socrates,
in Short was great personality, the greatest
which Greece produced in all her history. Platos
life divides into two periods the Socratlc and the
Platonic proper In the first the influence OF So
crates is diScernible in his dialogues especially
those directed against the Sophists, such as the
second, we have his "Phedo" "Phedrus, :, Trim
dus,' "the Symposium" Republic and Laws"
tue the ideal State, and the Laws which should
govern it. DR.. Dalton here gave Plato's views on
these and kindred subjects, showing that me be-
lieved in one God, the divine origin OF the soul
! and its Immortality.
To sum up, Plato was as Matthew Arnold said
of Emerson, sthe guide of all those who would
live in the spirt'' Cicero says that "if Jupiter
should descend to earth he would speak to US III
the style of Plato" In matters Of state Plato
subordnates the individual, and even the family,
to general laws enacted for the good OF the whole;
in which all individual initiative, and personal
As Socrates followed the Sophists, and Plato,
Socrates; so Aristotle followed Plato whose pupil
he was for about twenty years. .
AS Plato was superior to all others in genius,
surpassed all before and after him in style, so
Aristotle surpassed Plato and all other philoso
pliers, in the extent of his learning and the
breadth of his views, surpassed all the ancientS
absolutely and the moderns relatively. That is to
say, relatively to his age No man since Arts
totle had been so learned as he. Dante described
him briefly, but correctly as 'the master OF all
those who know He knew all that there was
to be known and his power of original thinking,
was not inferior tohis learning. He was not weight
ed or pressed:down by his learning, .all-embracng
as it was. Aristotles works which have come
down to us are still standard treatises on logic,
rhetoric, ethics, politics, and physics, or more
properly natural history, for physics or natural
in our day, doubtless Aristotle would have been
the first of natural philosophers, surprising
Bacon, Newton and Locke on their own ground.
AS it is, his logic and rhetoric have never been
materially improved, OF departed from, while his
ethics continue to be taught at Oxford and other
European universities His politics are prefer
able to those of Plato, with the exception OF his
signs to woman in society On the other hand, he
defends the rights of the individual and the fam
lily, against the communstic principles OF Plato
THE PAST PLAToNIc PERIOD.
The schools that aourshed in this period were
the Stole, the Epicurean, the Sceptic, and the Neo
Platonic or New Academy. The Stoics were SO
called from Greek word, sgnifying the place OF
teaching, viz; The porch, poTtico or gallery, in
which Zeno- the teacher, walked with his pupils,
as Plato had taught in the Academy and Aristotle
in the Lyceum The Stoicslproposed an ideal wise
man for imitation, and We're essentially sect Of
aScetcs The Epicureans held that pleasure is
the end of existence; hence their motto, 'Letus
eat and drinkstor tomorrow we die" The Scep-
tics were equivalent to the Agnostics of our day.
The Neo Platonists were a revival or survival Of
the old Platonism, modified by mysticism. Such
was ancient philosophy, The sum OF i IS that as
the is the source of light and light of truths0
the centre or kernel of truth is the secret of
which philosophers have ever been in search, yix;
"The one'' which underlied the many the poten-
tial, the immatcrial, the Interchangeable, the eter-
nal
RESUME.
A lecture on Greek Philosophy necessarily in
cludes many particulars To assist us in renlem-
bering these, there is nothing better than a good
outline. If the reader will run his eye over this
report, he will see that the Greek philosophers
are divided a. into three periods and (2) each of
the three periods into three leading schools or
cne the h Eeac tns % Rtoc
statement of the particular principle OF theory
of each.
In the second period we have the Sophistic, the
Platonic and the Aristotleian systems. In the
third period, the Stoics, Epicureans and Seepties
and in the same period revival OF the Platonlc,
commonly called Neo Platonsm.
But what of all this? What is Hecuba to me, or
to Hecuba, that l should weep for her? How
does it concern us of today to go back to these
Greek ''old Clothes" to adopt phrase of Carlyle
"Much, every way even as it concerns Chris
tians to recur to Judaism and occasionally ,, at
er reason, to see how they fit. In word, these
ancients, both Jewish and Greek, are closely and
inextricably interviewer with all our modern sys-
TENS, schools and sects, scientific philosophic and
religious, Hence; the necessity OF surveying
these as the foundations which we are build
ing our systems TO-DAY. And of us it is true.