Pythagoras himself was at Croton during this commotion; but the general belief seems to have been that he died not long after at Metapontum.''

'Thirlwall's History of Greece,' vol. ii. pp. 147-155.

CHAPTER III.

THE ELEATICS.

WE have now reached the consideration of the Eleatic school of philosophy, which derives its name from Elea, a Greek colonial city of Italy, its chief authors being Zenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno.

With Zenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic school of thought, philosophy appears to be passing into a new phase; although that phase had been gradually led up to by the philosophies of the Ionians and Pythagoras, who indeed may be called its legitimate forerunners and precursors, the Eleatic philosophy being almost a natural consequence of the previous philosophies.

The title of school' belongs more properly to the Eleatics than to the Ionians, inasmuch as the doctrines of Zenophanes were really developed and carried out by his disciples Parmenides and Zeno; whereas the Ionians, as we have seen, taught their several doctrines quite independently one of the other; and, if we except, perhaps, Anaximenes and Diogenes of Apollonia, no one of the Ionian philosophers could properly be called the disciple of the other.

Up to the time of Zenophanes, philosophical studies had been prosecuted in a more or less spirit of dogmatism. Each of the four Ionians, no less than Pythagoras, believed they had severally discovered the first principle of nature; and for the most part preached and set forth their doctrines as if they believed them to be irrevocable and final, although it is true that now and again there seems to be a faint fore

shadowing of the scepticism that was to follow; a painful, dreary uncertainty in their belief in their own discoveries. But the uncertainty is only faintly and occasionally implied; whereas their dogmatic assurance of water, air, fire, earth, or Numbers being severally the first principle of all things is more than implied; it is very clearly shown; and they each of them spent their lives in spreading and setting forth their particular doctrines and tenets. Zenophanes was not less earnest (indeed he was far more earnest) than the Ionians in seeking to make his philosophy known; but there is an absolute absence of dogmatism, almost indeed a pronounced scepticism, running through the whole of his teaching, that we fail to find in any of the Ionians; the only philosophy we have as yet examined at all resembling him on this wise being the philosophy of Anaxagoras. The philosophy of the Eleatics differs also from that of the Ionians in being far less equivocal. religious opinions the Ionians held. less degree to have believed in one Being, the sum and essence of all things. But they never named this Being 'God.' They couched the religious portion of their philosophy in such vague phraseology that, as we said in a previous chapter, it is not difficult for a materialist, a pantheist, or theist to discover his particular views reflected in these several philosophies.

We do not know what
They seem in more or

But with the school of philosophy of which Zenophanes is the founder we are no longer left in perplexity as to what it did or did not believe, what it did or did not intend to teach. Zenophanes, too, was happier than the men of the Ionic school, inasmuch as he was a poet as well as a philosopher, and the fragments of his poems that have come down to us throw some little light upon his life, besides rendering us capable of learning somewhat of his own thoughts as depicted by himself.

There is nothing equivocal in his religious views. We cannot doubt that he was an earnest and consistent Theist,

but we equally cannot doubt that he was an earnest and consistent Pantheist, for with him pantheism and monotheism are synonymous and convertible terms. He denounced the conception of a plurality of gods as an inconceivable error. He proclaimed God as an all-powerful Being, existing from eternity, and without any likeness. to man. He seems to have been overwhelmed with even a more than ordinary degree of painful uncertainty in endeavouring to fully comprehend this Being. But of one thing he could at least be certain: God was an all-powerful Being, and in the nature of things there could not be more than one all-powerful, or one all-perfect; for if there were even so many as two, those attributes could not apply to one of them, much less then if there were many. In the same way, since there cannot be two Eternals or two Omnipresents, the Universe must necessarily be identical with God. He taught that God and nature were thus identical, and that God, being nature, was therefore the sum of all being. He believed God to be without parts and throughout alike; for if He had parts, some would be ruled by others, which would be unintelligible, for the very idea of God presupposes his perfect and entire completeness. In his opinion there could be but one existence, and all conditions were but modes of that existence. The one Being was neither infinite nor finite. Not infinite, because non-being 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. In a figurative way he conceived and represented God to be a sphere encompassing man and the whole of nature. As Aristotle says of him: Casting his eyes upwards at the

immensity of heaven, he declared that the One is God.' All nature was one Being. The universe itself was identical with God, and, being identical, was one eternal unchangeable Whole, knowing neither death nor decay nor motion. The apparent phenomena of death and decay, or of change of any description, being mere impressions made upon the mind of the subject, and seldom appearing to two minds in the same light.

All this will probably be deemed metaphysical and bewildering, but we must remember it is nevertheless perfectly true. We only know of things subjectively; what they are objectively we know not, most probably we never shall know. An object appears smaller and smaller the further we are removed from it. If movement be very rapid, we are unable to distinguish it; if it be very slow, we are equally unable to distinguish it. A disordered state of the brain, or of the stomach, will give rise to apparent noises in the ears, or spots before the eyes, which have no objective reality. And indeed the only thing we may affirm with any certainty about the senses is that no object has ever yet been represented by them to us in its true reality.

This scepticism of Zenophanes, and his disbelief in the trustworthiness of the senses was afterwards greatly developed and extended by Pyrrho. Zenophanes, even when most bewildered and despairing amidst the multiplicity and confusion of metaphysical subtleties, never doubted that there was a reality amongst and beneath all the illusions and delusions of phenomena, a reality capable of being discovered and comprehended. He was only

afraid that it had not fallen to his lot to be able to find or comprehend the reality. But he believed he must be patient, and endeavour with all his might to conquer the deceptions of the senses; he might then be able to gain at least an occasional glimpse of real truth amidst so much The stronghold of Pyrrho was much more impr.