_γ_. It is very remarkable that this form of identity came to be known in Stilpo, and he in this way only wished to know propositions identically expressed. Plutarch quotes from him: “A different predicate may in no case be attributed to any object (_ἕτερον ἑτέρου μὴ κατηγορεῖσθαι_). Thus we could not say that the man is good or the man is a general, but simply that man is only man, good is only good, the general is only the general. Nor could we say ten thousand knights, but knights are only knights, ten thousand are only ten thousand, &c. When we speak of a horse running, he says that the predicate is not identical with the object to which it is attributed. For the concept-determination man is different (_τοῦ τί ἦν εἶναι τὸν λόγον_) from the concept-determination good. Similarly horse and running are distinct: when we are asked for a definition of either, we do not give the same for both. Hence those who say something different of what is different are wrong. For if man and good were the same, and likewise horse and running, how could good be used of bread and physic, and running of lions and dogs”?[159] Plutarch remarks here that Colotes attacks Stilpo in a bombastic manner (_τραγῷδίαν ἐπάγει_) as though he ignored common life (_τὸν βίον ἀναιρεῖσθαι_). “But what man,” Plutarch reflects, “lived any the worse for this? Is there any man who hears this said, and who does not know that it is an elaborate joke (_παῖζοντός ἐστιν εὐμούσως_)?”
2. THE CYRENAIC SCHOOL.
The Cyrenaics took their name from Aristippus of Cyrene in Africa, the originator and head of the school. Just as Socrates wished to develop himself as an individual, his disciples, or those of the Cyrenaic and Cynic Schools, made individual life and practical philosophy their main object. Now if the Cyrenaics did not rest content with the determination of good in general, seeing that they inclined to place it in the enjoyment of the individual, the Cynics appear to be opposed to the whole doctrine, for they expressed the particular content of satisfaction as natural desires in a determination of negativity with regard to what is done by others. But as the Cyrenaics thereby satisfied their particular subjectivity, so also did the Cynics, and both schools have hence on the whole the same end—the freedom and independence of the individual. Because we are accustomed to consider happiness, which the Cyrenaics made the highest end of man, to be contentless, because we obtain it in a thousand ways, and it may be the result of most various causes, this principle appears at first to us as trivial, and indeed, generally speaking, it is so; we are likewise accustomed to believe that there is something higher than pleasure. The philosophic development of this principle which, for the rest, has not much in it, is mainly ascribed to Aristippus’ follower, Aristippus the younger. But Theodorus, Hegesias, and Anniceris, of the later Cyrenaics, are specially mentioned as having scientifically worked out the Aristippian principle, until it degenerated and merged into Epicureanism. But the consideration of the further progress of the Cyrenaic principle is specially interesting because this progression, in the essential nature of things, is carried quite beyond the principle, and has really abrogated it. Feeling is the indeterminate individual. But if thought, reflection, mental culture, are given a place in this principle, through the principle of the universality of thought that principle of contingency, individuality, mere subjectivity, disappears; and the only really remarkable thing in this school is that this greater consistency in the universal is therefore an inconsistency as regards the principle.
_a._ ARISTIPPUS.
Aristippus went about with Socrates for a long time, and educated himself under him, although at the same time he was a strong and highly cultivated man before he sought out Socrates at all. He heard of him either in Cyrene or at the Olympian Games, which, as Greeks, the Cyrenians likewise visited. His father was a merchant, and he himself came to Athens on a journey which had commerce as its object. He was first amongst the Socratics to ask money of those whom he instructed; he also sent money to Socrates, who, however, returned it.[160] He did not content himself with the general expressions, good and beautiful, to which Socrates adhered, but took existence reflected in consciousness in its extreme determinateness as individuality; and because universal existence, as thought, was to him, from the side of reality, individual consciousness, he fixed on enjoyment as the only thing respecting which man had rationally to concern himself. The character and personality of Aristippus is what is most important, and what is preserved to us in his regard is his manner and life rather than his philosophic doctrines. He sought after enjoyment as a man of culture, who in that very way had raised himself into perfect indifference to all that is particular, all passions and bonds of every kind. When pleasure is made the principle, we immediately have the idea before us that in its enjoyment we are dependent, and that enjoyment is thus opposed to the principle of freedom. But neither of the Cyrenaic teaching, nor the Epicurean, whose principle is on the whole the same, can this be stated. For by itself the end of enjoyment may well be said to be a principle in opposition to Philosophy; but when it is considered in such a way that the cultivation of thought is made the only condition under which enjoyment can be attained, perfect freedom of spirit is retained, since it is inseparable from culture. Aristippus certainly esteemed culture at its highest, and proceeded from this position—that pleasure is only a principle for men of philosophic culture; his main principle thus was that what is found to be pleasant is not known immediately but only by reflection.
Aristippus lived in accordance with these principles, and what in him interests us most is the number of anecdotes told about him, because they contain traces of a mentally rich and free disposition. Since in his life he went about to seek enjoyment, not without understanding (and thereby he was in his way a philosopher), he sought it partly with the discretion which does not yield itself to a momentary happiness, because a greater evil springs therefrom; and partly (as if philosophy were merely preservation from anxiety) without that anxiety which on every side fears possible evil and bad results; but above all without any dependence on things, and without resting on anything which is itself of a changeable nature. He enjoyed, says Diogenes, the pleasures of the moment, without troubling himself with those which were not present; he suited himself to every condition, being at home in all; he remained the same whether he were in regal courts or in the most miserable conditions. Plato is said to have told him that it was given to him alone to wear the purple and the rags. He was specially attached to Dionysius, being very popular with him; he certainly clung to him, but always retained complete independence. Diogenes, the Cynic, for this reason called him the royal dog. When he demanded fifty drachms from someone who wished to hand over to him his son, and the man found the sum too high, saying that he could buy a slave for it, Aristippus answered, “Do so, and you will have two.” When Socrates asked him, “How do you have so much money?” he replied, “How do you have so little?” When a courtesan said to him that she had a child by him, he replied, “You know as little whether it is mine as, were you walking through briars, would you know which thorn pricked you.” A proof of his perfect indifference is given in the following: When Dionysius once spat at him, he bore it patiently, and when blamed, said, “The fishermen let themselves be wet by the sea to catch the little fish, and I, should I not bear this to catch such a good one?” When Dionysius asked him to choose one of three courtesans, he took them all with him, observing that it had been a dangerous thing even to Paris to choose out one; but after leading them to the vestibule of the house, he let all three go. He made nothing of the possession of money as contrasted with the results which appear to follow from pursuing pleasure, and hence he wasted it on dainties. He once bought a partridge at fifty drachms (about twenty florins). When someone rebuked him, he asked, “Would you not buy it for a farthing?” And when this was acknowleged, he answered, “Now fifty drachms are no more than that to me.” Similarly in journeying in Africa, the slave thought it hard to be troubled with a sum of money. When Aristippus knew this he said, “Throw away what is too much and carry what you can.”
As regards the value of culture, he replied to the question as to how an educated man differs from an uneducated, that a stone would not fit in with the other, _i.e._ the difference is as great as that of a man from the stone. This is not quite wrong, for man is what he ought to be as man, through culture; it is his second nature through which he first enters into possession of that which he has by nature, and thus for the first time he is Mind. We may not, however, think in this way of our uncultured men, for with us such men through the whole of their conditions, through customs and religion, partake of a source of culture which places them far above those who do not live in such conditions. Those who carry on other sciences and neglect Philosophy, Aristippus compares to the wooers of Penelope in the Odyssey, who might easily have Melantho and the other maidens, but who could not obtain the queen.[161] The teaching of Aristippus and his followers is very simple, for he took the relation of consciousness to existence in its most superficial and its earliest form, and expressed existence as Being as it is immediately for consciousness, _i.e._ as feeling simply. A distinction is now made between the true, the valid, what exists in and for itself, and the practical and good, and what ought to be our end; but in regard to both the theoretic and practical truth, the Cyrenaics make sensation what determines. Hence their principle is more accurately not the objective itself, but the relation of consciousness to the objective; the truth is not what is in sensation the content, but is itself sensation, it is not objective, but the objective subsists only in it. “Thus the Cyrenaics say, sensations form the real criterion; they alone can be known, and are infallible, but what produces feeling is neither knowable nor infallible. Thus when we perceive a white and sweet, we may assert this condition as ours with truth and certainty. But that the causes of these feelings are themselves a white and sweet object we cannot with certainty affirm. What these men say about ends is also in harmony with this, for sensations also extend to ends. The sensations are either pleasant or unpleasant or neither of the two. Now they call the unpleasant feelings the bad, the end of which is pain; the pleasant is the good, whose invariable end is happiness. Thus feelings are the criteria of knowledge and the ends for action. We live because we follow them from testimony (_ἐναργείᾳ_) received and satisfaction (_εὑδοκήσει_) experienced, the former in accordance with theoretic intuitions (_κατὰ τὰ ἄλλα πάθη_), and the latter with what gives us pleasure.”[162] That is to say, as end, feeling is no longer a promiscuous variety of sensuous affections (_τὰ ἄλλα πάθη_), but the setting up of the Notion as the positive or negative relation to the object of action, which is just the pleasant or the unpleasant.
Here we enter on a new sphere where two kinds of determinations constitute the chief points of interest; these are everywhere treated of in the many Socratic schools which were being formed, and though not by Plato and Aristotle, they were specially so by the Stoics, the new Academy, &c. That is to say, the one point is determination itself in general, the criterion; and the second is what determination for the subject is. And thus the idea of the wise man results—what the wise do, who the wise are, &c. The reason that these two expressions are now so prominent is one which rests on what has gone before. On the one hand the main interest is to find a content for the good, for else men may talk about it for years. This further definition of the good is just the criterion. On the other hand the interest of the subject appears, and that is the result of the revolution in the Greek mind made by Socrates. When the religion, constitution, laws of a people, are held in esteem, and when the individual members of a people are one with them, the question of what the individual has to do on his own account, will not be put. In a moralized, religious condition of things we are likely to find the end of man in what is present, and these morals, religion and laws are also present in him. When, on the contrary, the individual exists no longer in the morality of his people, no longer has his substantial being in the religion, laws, &c., of his land, he no longer finds what he desires, and no longer satisfies himself in his present. But if this discord has arisen, the individual must immerse himself in himself, and there seek his end. Now this is really the cause that the question of what is the essential for the individual arises. After what end must he form himself and after what strive? Thus an ideal for the individual is set up, and this is the wise man: what was called the ideal of the wise man is the individuality of self-consciousness which is conceived of as universal essence. The point of view is the same when we now ask, What can I know? What should I believe? What ought I to hope? What is the highest interest of the subject? It is not what is truth, right, the universal end of the world, for instead of asking about the science of the implicitly and explicitly objective, the question is what is true and right in as far as it is the insight and conviction of the individual, his end and a mode of his existence? This talk about wise men is universal amongst the Stoics, Epicureans, &c., but is devoid of meaning. For the wise man is not in question, but the wisdom of the universe, real reason. A third definition is that the universal is the good; the real side of things is enjoyment and happiness as a simple existence and immediate actuality. How then do the two agree? The philosophic schools which now arise and their successors have set forth the harmony of both determinations, which are the higher Being and thought.
_b._ THEODORUS.
Of the later Cyrenaics, Theodorus must be mentioned first; he is famous for having denied the existence of the gods, and being, for this reason, banished from Athens. Such a fact can, however, have no further interest or speculative significance, for the positive gods which Theodorus denied, are themselves not any object of speculative reason. He made himself remarkable besides for introducing the universal more into the idea of that which was existence for consciousness, for “he made joy and sorrow the end, but in such a way that the former pertained to the understanding and the latter to want of understanding. He defined the good as understanding and justice, and the bad as the opposite; enjoyment and pain, however, were indifferent.”[163] When we reach the consciousness that the individual sensuous feeling, as it is immediately, is not to be considered as real existence, it is then said that it must be accepted with understanding; _i.e._ feeling, just as it is, is not reality. For the sensuous generally, as sensation, theoretic or practical, is something quite indeterminate, this or that unit; a criticism of this unit is hence required, _i.e._ it must be considered in the form of universality, and hence this last necessarily reappears. But this advance on individuality is culture, which, through the limitation of individual feelings and enjoyments, tries to make these harmonious, even though it first of all only calculates as to that by which the greater pleasure is to be found. Now, to the question as to which of the many enjoyments which I, as a many-sided man, can enjoy, is the one which is in completest harmony with me, and in which I thus find the greatest satisfaction, it must be replied that the completest harmony with me is only found in the accordance of my particular existence and consciousness with my actual substantial Being. Theodorus comprehended this as understanding and justice, in which we know where to seek enjoyment. But when it is said that felicity must be sought by reflection, we know that these are empty words and thoughtless utterances. For the feeling in which felicity is contained, is in its conception the individual, self-changing, without universality and subsistence. Thus the universal, understanding, as an empty form, adheres to a content quite incongruous with it; and thus Theodorus distinguished the Good in its form, from the end as the Good in its nature and content.
_c._ HEGESIAS.
It is remarkable that another Cyrenaic, Hegesias, recognized this incongruity between sensation and universality, which last is opposed to the individual, having what is agreeable as well as disagreeable within itself. Because, on the whole, he took a firmer grasp of the universal and gave it a larger place, there passed from him all determination of individuality, and with it really the Cyrenaic principle. It came to his knowledge that individual sensation is in itself nothing; and, as he nevertheless made enjoyment his end, it became to him the universal. But if enjoyment is the end, we must ask about the content; if this content is investigated, we find every content a particular which is not in conformity with the universal, and thus falls into dialectic. Hegesias followed the Cyrenaic principle as far as to this consequence of thought. That universal is contained in an expression of his which we often enough hear echoed, “There is no perfect happiness. The body is troubled with manifold pains, and the soul suffers along with it; it is hence a matter of indifference whether we choose life or death. In itself nothing is pleasant or unpleasant.” That is to say, the criterion of being pleasant or unpleasant, because its universality is removed, is thus itself made quite indeterminate; and because it has no objective determinateness in itself, it has become unmeaning; before the universal, which is thus held secure, the sum of all determinations, the individuality of consciousness as such, disappears, but with it even life itself as being unreal. “The rarity, novelty, or excess of enjoyment begets in some cases enjoyment and in others discontent. Poverty and riches have no meaning for what is pleasant, since we see that the rich do not enjoy pleasures more than the poor. Similarly, slavery and liberty, noble and ignoble birth, fame and lack of fame, are equivalent as regards pleasure. Only to a fool can living be a matter of moment; to the wise man it is indifferent,” and he is consequently independent. “The wise man acts only after his own will, and he considers none other equally worthy. For even if he attain from others the greatest benefits, this does not equal what he gives himself. Hegesias and his friends also take away sensation, because it gives no sufficient knowledge,” which really amounts to scepticism. “They say further that we ought to do what we have reason to believe is best. The sinner should be forgiven, for no one willingly sins, but is conquered by a passion. The wise man does not hate, but instructs; his endeavours go not so much to the attainment of good, as to the avoidance of evil, for his aim is to live without trouble and sorrow.”[164] This universality, which proceeds from the principle of the freedom of the individual self-consciousness, Hegesias expressed as the condition of the perfect indifference of the wise men—an indifference to everything into which we shall see all philosophic systems of the kind going forth, and which is a surrendering of all reality, the complete withdrawal of life into itself. It is told that Hegesias, who lived in Alexandria, was not allowed to teach the Ptolemies of the time, because he inspired many of his hearers with such indifference to life that they took their own.[165] _d._ ANNICERIS.
We also hear of Anniceris and his followers, who, properly speaking, departed from the distinctive character of the principle of the Cyrenaic school, and thereby gave philosophic culture quite another direction. It is said of them that “they acknowledged friendship in common life, along with gratitude, honour to parents, and service for one’s country. And although the wise man has, by so doing, to undergo hardship and work, he can still be happy, even if he therein obtains few pleasures. Friendships are not to be formed on utilitarian grounds alone, but because of the good will that develops; and out of love to friends, even burdens and difficulties are to be undertaken.”[166] The universal, the theoretically speculative element in the school, is thus lost; it sinks more into what is popular. This is then the second direction which the Cyrenaic school has taken; the first was the overstepping of the principle itself. A method of philosophizing in morals arises, which later on prevailed with Cicero and the Peripatetics of his time, but the interest has disappeared, so far as any consistent system of thought is concerned.
3. THE CYNIC SCHOOL.
There is nothing particular to say of the Cynics, for they possess but little Philosophy, and they did not bring what they had into a scientific system; it was only later that their tenets were raised by the Stoics into a philosophic discipline. With the Cynics, as with the Cyrenaics, the point was to determine what should be the principle for consciousness, both as regards its knowledge and its actions. The Cynics also set up the Good as a universal end, and asked in what, for individual men, it is to be sought. But if the Cyrenaic, in accordance with his determinate principle, made the consciousness of himself as an individual, or feeling, into real existence for consciousness, the Cynic took this individuality, in as far as it has the form of universality directly for me, _i.e._ in as far as I am a free consciousness, indifferent to all individuality. Thus they are opposed to the Cyrenaics for while to these feeling, which, because it has to be determined through thought, is undoubtedly extended into universality and perfect freedom, is made the principle, the former begin with perfect freedom and independence as the property of man. But since this is the same indifference of self-consciousness which Hegesias expressed as real existence, the extremes in the Cynic and Cyrenaic modes of thought destroy themselves by their own consequences, and pass into one another. With the Cyrenaics there is the impulse to turn things back into consciousness, according to which nothing is real existence for me; the Cynics had also only to do with themselves, and the individual self-consciousness was likewise principle. But the Cynic, at least in the beginning, set up for the guidance of men the principle of freedom and indifference, both in regard to thought and actual life, as against all external individuality, particular ends, needs, and enjoyments; so that culture not only sought after indifference to these and independence within itself, as with the Cyrenaics, but for express privation, and for the limitation of needs to what is necessary and what nature demands. The Cynics thus maintained as the content of the good, the greatest independence of nature, _i.e._ the slightest possible necessities; this meant a rebound from enjoyment, and from the pleasures of feeling. The negative is here the determining; later on this opposition of Cynics and Cyrenaics likewise appeared between Stoics and Epicureans. But the same negation which the Cynics made their principle, had already shown itself in the further development which the Cyrenaic philosophy had taken. The School of the Cynics had no scientific weight; it only constitutes an element which must necessarily appear in the knowledge of the universal, and which is that consciousness must know itself in its individuality, as free from all dependence on things and on enjoyment. To him who relies upon riches or enjoyment such dependence is in fact real consciousness, or his individuality is real existence. But the Cynics so enforced that negative moment that they placed freedom in actual renunciation of so-called superfluities; they only recognized this abstract unmoving independence, which did not concern itself with enjoyment or the interests of an ordinary life. But true freedom does not consist in flying from enjoyment and the occupations which have as their concern other men and other ends in life; but in the fact that consciousness, though involved in all reality, stands above it and is free from it.
_a._ ANTISTHENES.
Antisthenes, an Athenian and friend of Socrates, was the first who professed to be a Cynic. He lived at Athens, and taught in a gymnasium, called Cynosarges, and he was called the “simple dog” (_ἁπλοκύων_). His mother was Thracian, which was often made a reproach to him—a reproach which to us would be unmeaning. He replied that the mother of the gods was a Phrygian, and that the Athenians, who make so much of their being native born, are in no way nobler than the native fish and grasshoppers. He educated himself under Gorgias and Socrates, and went daily from the Piræus to the city to hear Socrates. He wrote several works, the titles of which Diogenes mentions, and, according to all accounts, was esteemed a highly cultivated and upright man.[167] Antisthenes’ principles are simple, because the content of his teaching remains general; it is hence superfluous to say anything further about it. He gives general rules, which consist of such excellent maxims as that “virtue is self-sufficing, and requires nothing more than a Socratic strength of character. The good is excellent, the bad discreditable. Virtue consists of works, and does not require many reasons or theories. The end of man is a virtuous life. The wise man is contented with himself, for he possesses everything that others seem to possess. His own virtue satisfies him; he is at home all over the world. If he lacks fame, this is not to be regarded as an evil, but as a good,” &c.[168] We here, once more, have the tedious talk about the wise man, which by the Stoics, as also by the Epicureans, was even more spun out and made more tedious. In this ideal, where the determination of the subject is in question, its satisfaction is placed in simplifying its needs. But when Antisthenes says that virtue does not require reasons and theories, he forgets that he himself acquired, through the cultivation of mind, its independence and the power of renouncing all that men desire. We see directly that virtue has now obtained another signification; it no longer is unconscious virtue, like the simple virtue of a citizen of a free people, who fulfils his duties to fatherland, place, and family, as these relationships immediately require. The consciousness which has gone beyond itself must, in order to become Mind, now lay hold of and comprehend all reality, i.e. be conscious of it as its own. But conditions such as are called by names like innocence or beauty of soul, are childish conditions, which are certainly to be praised in their own place, but from which man, because he is rational, must come forth, in order to re-create himself from the sublated immediacy. The freedom and independence of the Cynics, however, which consists only in lessening to the utmost the burden imposed by wants, is abstract, because it, as negative in character, has really to be a mere renunciation. Concrete freedom consists in maintaining an indifferent attitude towards necessities, not avoiding them, but in their satisfaction remaining free, and abiding in morality and in participation in the moral life of man. Abstract freedom, on the contrary, surrenders its morality, because the individual withdraws into his subjectivity, and is consequently an element of immorality.
Yet Antisthenes bears a high place in this Cynical philosophy. But the attitude he adopted comes very near to that of rudeness, vulgarity of conduct and shamelessness; and later on Cynicism passed into such. Hence comes the continual mockery of, and the constant jokes against the Cynics; and it is only their individual manners and individual strength of character which makes them interesting. It is even told of Antisthenes that he began to attribute value to external poverty of life. Cynicism adopted a simple wardrobe—a thick stick of wild olive, a ragged double mantle without any under garment, which served as bed by night, a beggar’s sack for the food that was required, and a cup with which to draw water.[169] This was the costume with which these Cynics used to distinguish themselves. That on which they placed highest value was the simplification of their needs; it seems very plausible to say that this produces freedom. For needs are certainly dependence upon nature, and this is antagonistic to freedom of spirit; the reduction of that dependence to a minimum is thus an idea which commends itself. But at the same time this minimum is itself undetermined, and if such stress is laid on thus merely following nature, it follows that too great a value is set on the needs of nature and on the renunciation of others. This is what is also evident in the monastic principle. The negative likewise contains an affirmative bias towards what is renounced; and the renunciation and