Volume 1

Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars.

Date:
1908-1926
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cal’ (derived from riXetov, ‘full-grown’) or evolu- tionary view of the world, and this explains the fact that he wrote chiefly on biological subjects. We know from the quotations of Athenaeus that in his ten books of ‘Similars’ C'O/uoca) he discussed shellfish and mushrooms. It is in accordance, too, with this evolutionary standpoint that he regarded sense - perception as rudimentary science (iinaT-ri- ti.oviK^ aicrdTjo-Ls), and that he defined happiness {eidaifiovla) as the ‘full-grown state’ reXela) of those in a natural condition {^i’ ro2s Kara <p)j<nv ^oxKTLv). It was not pleasure; for pleasure and pain were two evils, opposed to one another, and also to the middle state of ‘ imperturbability ’ (aoxK-rjala), which is the happiness aimed at by good men (Clem. Strom, ii. 21). Xenocrates of Chalcedon (scholarch 339-314 B.C.) spoke of the limit and the unlimited as the ‘ unit ’ (/xovd^) and the ‘ indeterminate dyad ’ {idpicTTos Svds), and he reverted to the strictly Platonic view of the ‘ideal numbers’ (elS-priKol dpiOfiol). It is character- istic of him that he was fond of religious language, calling the unit the Father, and the dyad the Mother, of the gods. The heaven of the fixed stars was also a god, and so were the planets. When we come to the ‘sublunary’(uttoo-Aijj'os) sphere, how- ever, we find ‘demons’ (Salfioyes)—beings who, like Eros in the Symposium, are intermediate between gods and men. The souls of men were also ‘demons’ (Arist. Top. 112a, 37), though the scien- tific definition of a soul was ‘ a self-moving number.’ This theory of ‘demons’ had, of course, an enor- mous influence upon later theology, both Platonist and Christian, and marks Xenocrates as the origin- ator of the ‘ emanationist ’ view of the world, as opposed to the ‘ evolutionary ’ view of Speusippus. It is important to notice, however, that he was uite conscious of the allegorical character of this octrine. He asserted that his account of the creation was only a device intended to make his theory clear for purposes of instruction. ReaUy, the creation of the world was eternal or timeless, a view which, he maintained, had also been that of Plato (Plut. An. Procr. 3). Like Speusippus, Xenocrates was inclined to attach much value to rudimentary forms of know- ledge. He distinguished y>pbvr]cn% as the wisdom possible to man from o•o^^a or complete knowledge, and he thought that even irrational animals might have the idea of God and immortality. In his ethics he_ was less ascetic than Speusippus, and attached importance to the possession of the power which ministers to goodness (inr7)peTLK^ Svvafus), that is, to ‘ external goods ’ (Clem. Strom, ii. 22, v. 13). The next two scholarchs, Polemo and Crates, seem to have busied themselves almost entirely with popular ethics. The most distinguished mem- ber of the Academy in their time was Grantor, who wrote a much admired treatise on mourning (Hepi Trivdovs). He was a disciple of Xenocrates, but died before Crates, and was never scholarch. 2. The ‘New Academy’ (‘Middle Academy’ according to those who reckon the New from Carneades) begins with Arcesilas (scholarch 270 ?- 241 B.C.), who made use of the weapons provided by scepticism to combat the Stoic theory of ‘ com- prehension ’ (KardXrjfis) as a criterion of truth inter- mediate between knowledge (^jrtcrTi)/ii;) and belief (66^0,). As he appears to have left no writings, we cannot tell how far his scepticism really went, though Cicero certainly states that he denied the possibility of knowledge (Acad. i. 44). On the other hand, Sextus Empiricus says that his Pyr- rhonism was merely apparent, and that he taught Platonic dogmatism to the inner circle of his dis- ciples, quoting in support of this a verse of his contemporary Ariston of Chios, describing him as a sort of Chimsera, ‘ Plato in front, Pyrrho behind. and Diodorus in the middle.’ In any case, we must remember that Plato himself had denied the possi- bility of knowledge as regards the world of sense, and it was quite natural that this side of his teach- ing should become the most prominent in an age of dogmatic materialism. The next scholarch, Lacydes (241-215 B.C.), continued the tradition of Arcesilas. Of his successors, Telecles, Euander, and Hegesinus, we know nothing. The most distinguished head of the New Academy was Carneades of Cyrene (214-129 B.C.), who threw himself whole-heartedly into the attack on Stoicism as represented by Chrysippus. In 156 B.c. he came to Rome as ambassaaor, Avith the Stoic Diogenes and the Peripatetic Critolaus, and astonished the Romans by his power of arguing both for and against justice and the like (in utramque partem disputare). Like Arcesilas, he wrote nothing, but his arguments were preserved by his successor Clitomachus. They Avere directed against aU theories Avhich admitted a ‘criterion’ of truth; but, on the other hand, he himself set up three criteria of probability as necessary for practical life and the pursuit of happiness. In ordinary matters we take ‘probable impression’ (wiBavij ipavraaLa) as our criterion; in important matters the impression must also be ‘incapable of distortion’ by other impressions (dTreplcrira<TTos), while in those Avhich pertam to our happiness, it must also be ‘tested and approA^ed’ (Bie^aiSevpitvri). The Stoic doctrine of ‘assent’ (avyKarddeais) to a ‘compre- hending impression’ (KaTaXrjwriKr] pavraerLa} can yield no more than this. Carneades died in his eighty-fifth year (129 B.C.), and was succeeded by Clitomachus of Carthage, Avho was succeeded by Philo of Larissa. During the Mithridatic war (88 B.C.), Philo took refuge at Rome, where he had Cicero as an enthusiastic student. Sextus teUs us distinctly (Pyrrh. i. 235) that he held things were in their oAvn nature ‘ com- prehendible’ (KaraX-n-n-Td), though ‘ incomprehend- ible ’ (dKardXrircTa) SO far as the Stoic criterion Avent. His disciple Antiochus of Ascalon broke AAUth the tradition of Carneades altogether, and even with the teaching of Philo, whom he succeeded. He held that all Stoic doctrines were to be found in Plato, and that the differences of the Peripatetics and Stoics from the Academy were merely verbal. Cicero heard him at Athens in 79 B.C., and it was on his teaching that he based his own Academic eclecticism. After Antiochus the history of the Academy is a blank for many generations. Neoplatonism did not originate Avithin it, and was not introduced into ittiU the 5th cent. A.D. by Plutarch of Athens (t c. 430 A.D.). His successor Proclus is unimport- ant figure in the history of philosophy and religion, but he does not concern us here. The school pro- duced in its last days some distinguished com- mentators on Plato and Aristotle, notably Simplicius the COician and Damascius the Syrian. Damascius was the last scholarch; for, in 529 A.D., Justinian closed the school and confiscated its revenues, amounting to 1000 gold pieces, of which Plato’s garden brought in only three. Damascius, Avith Simplicius and some others, took refuge at the court of Chosroes, king of Persia, who was supposed to be devoted to philosophy. They were dis- appointed in him, however, and returned on the conclusion of peace, when Chosroes made it a con- dition that they should not be molested in their religious faith and observances (Agath. Hist. ii. 30). Simplicius speaks Avith excusable bitterness of Christian theology; but the best of Platonism, as then understood, had already been absorbed by that very theology, and the work of the Academy was done, at least for the time. When Justinian closed it, it had lasted over nine hundred years.