alone, as having neither beginning, middle, nor end, is unlimited (infinite). Not finite, because one thing can only be limited by another, and God is one, not many. In like manner did logic teach him, that God was neither moved, nor unmoved. Not moved, because one thing can only be moved by another; and God is one, not many. Not unmoved, because non-being alone is unmoved, inasmuch as it neither goes to another, nor does another come to it. With such verbal quibbles as these did this great thinker darken his conception of the Deity. They were not quibbles to him; they were the real conclusions involved in the premisses from which he reasoned. To have doubted their validity, would have been to doubt the possibility of philosophy. He was not quite prepared for that. And Aristotle characterises this inconsequence by calling him "somewhat clownish" ȧypoukórεpos (Met. i. 5); meaning that his conceptions were rude and undigested, instead of being systematized. Although in the indecision of Xenophanes we see the germs of later scepticism, we are disposed to agree with M. Cousin in discrediting the charge of absolute scepticism-of the incomprehensibility of all thingsἀκαταληψία πάντων. Nevertheless some of M. Cousin's grounds appear to us questionable.* *E. g. He says: "It appears that Sotion, according to Diogenes, attributed to Xenophanes the opinion, all things are incomprehensible; but Diogenes adds that Sotion is wrong on that point."-Fragmens, p. 89. Now, this is altogether a mis-statement. Diogenes says:-"Sotion pretends that no one before Xenophanes maintained the incomprehensibility of all things; but he is wrong."-Diogenes here does not deny that Xenophanes held the opinion, but that any one held it before him. The reader will, perhaps, have gathered from the foregoing, that Xenophanes was too much in earnest to believe in the incomprehensibility of all things, however the contradictions of his logic might cause him to suspect his and other people's conclusions. Of course, if carried out to their legitimate consequences, his principles lead to absolute scepticism; but he did not so carry them out, and we have no right to charge him with consequences which he himself did not draw. Indeed, it is one of the greatest and commonest of critical errors, to charge the originator or supporter of a doctrine with consequences which he did not see, or would not accept. Because they may be contained in his principles, it by no means follows that he saw them. To give an instance: Spinoza was a very religious man, although his doctrine amounted to atheism, or little better; but his critics have been greatly in the wrong in accusing him of atheism. A man would be ridiculed if he attributed to the discoverer of any law of nature the various discoveries which the application of that law might have produced; nevertheless these applications were all potentially existing in the law; but as the discoverer of the law was not aware of them, so he does not get the credit. Why, then, should a man have the discredit of consequences contained, indeed, in his principles, but which he himself could not see? On the whole, although Xenophanes was not a clear and systematic thinker, it cannot be denied that he exercised a very remarkable influence on the progress of speculation; as we shall see in his successors. CHAPTER III. PARMENIDES. THE readers of Plato will not forget the remarkable dialogue in which he pays a tribute to the dialectical subtlety of Parmenides; but we must at the outset caution against any belief in the genuineness of the opinions attributed to him by Plato. If Plato could reconcile to himself the propriety of altering the sentiments of his beloved master Socrates, and of attributing to him such as he had never entertained; with far greater reason could he put into the mouth of one long dead, sentiments which were the invention of his own dramatic genius. Let us read the "Parmenides," therefore, with extreme caution; let us prefer the authority of Aristotle, and the verses of Parmenides which have been preserved. Parmenides was born at Elea, somewhere about the 61st Olympiad. This date does not contradict the rumour which, according to Aristotle, asserted him to have been a disciple of Xenophanes, whom he might have listened to when that great Rhapsodist was far advanced in years. The most positive statement, however, is that by Sotion, of his having been taught by Ameinias and Diochotes the Pythagorean. But both may be true. Born to wealth and splendour, enjoying the esteem and envy which always follow splendour and talents, it is conjectured that his early career was that of a dissipated voluptuary; but Diochotes taught him the nothingness of wealth (at times, perhaps, when satiety had taught him the nothingness of enjoyment), and led him from the dull monotony of noisy revelry to the endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought. He forsook the feverish pursuit of enjoyment, to contemplate "the bright countenance of Truth, in the quiet and still air of delightful studies." But this devotion to study was no egotistical seclusion. It did not prevent his taking an active share in the political affairs of his native city. On the contrary, the fruits of his study were shown in a code of laws which he drew up, and which were deemed so wise and salutary, that the citizens at first yearly renewed their oath to abide by the laws of Parmenides. "And something greater did his worth obtain; The first characteristic of his philosophy, is the decided distinction between Truth and Opinion: in other words, between the ideas obtained through the Reason and those obtained through Sense. In Xenophanes we noticed a vague glimmering of this notion. In Parmenides it attained to something like clearness. In Xenophanes it contrived to throw an uncertainty over all things; which, in a logical thinker, would have become absolute scepticism. But he was saved from scepticism by his faith. Parmenides was saved from it by his philosophy. He was perfectly aware of the deceitful nature of opinion; but he was also aware that within him there were certain ineradicable convictions, in which, like Xenophanes, he had perfect faith, but which he wished to explain by reason. * Milton. Thus was he led in some sort to anticipate the celebrated doctrine of innate ideas. These ideas were concerning necessary truths; they were true knowledge. All other ideas were uncertain. The Eleatæ, as Ritter remarks, believed that they recognised and could demonstrate that the truth of all things is one and unchangeable; perceiving, however, that the human faculty of thought is constrained to follow the appearance of things, and to apprehend the changeable and the many, they were forced to confess that we are unable fully to comprehend the divine truth in its reality, although we may rightly apprehend a few general principles. Nevertheless, to suppose, in conformity with human thought, that there is actually both a plurality and a change, would be but a delusion of the senses. While, on the other hand, we must acknowledge, that in all that appears to us as manifold and changeable, including all particular thought as evolved in the mind, the Godlike is present, unperceived indeed by human blindness, and become, as it were beneath a veil, indistinguishable. We may make this conception more intelligible if we recal the mathematical tendency of the whole of this school. Their knowledge of Physics was regarded as contingent-delusive. Their knowledge of Mathematics eternal-self-evident. Parmenides was thus led by Xenophanes on the one hand, and Diochotes on the other, to the conviction of the duality of human thought. His reason-i. e., the Pythagorean logic-taught him, that there is naught existing but The One (which he did not, with Xenophanes, call God, but Being). His sense, on the other hand, taught him, that there were Many Things, because of his manifold sensuous |