CONTENTS
CHAP.
I.--THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS--
I. Thales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. Anaximander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
II.--THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS (_concluded_)--
III. Anaximenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
IV. Heraclitus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
III.--PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS . . . . . . . . . 22
IV.--THE ELEATICS--
I. Xenophanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
II. Parmenides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
V.--THE ELEATICS (_concluded_)--
III. Zeno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
IV. Melissus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
VI.--THE ATOMISTS--
I. Anaxagoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
VII.--THE ATOMISTS (_continued_)--
II. Empedocles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
VIII.--THE ATOMISTS (_concluded_)--
III. Leucippus and Democritus . . . . . . . . . . 74
IX.--THE SOPHISTS--
I. Protagoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
X.--THE SOPHISTS (_concluded_)--
II. Gorgias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
XI.--SOCRATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
XII.--SOCRATES (concluded) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
XIII.--THE INCOMPLETE SOCRATICS--
I. Aristippus and the Cyrenaics . . . . . . . . 124
II. Antisthenes and the Cynics . . . . . . . . . 128
III. Euclides and the Megarics . . . . . . . . . . 132
XIV.--PLATO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
XV.--PLATO (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
XVI.--PLATO (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
XVII.--PLATO (_concluded_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
XVIII.--ARISTOTLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
XIX.--ARISTOTLE (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
XX.--ARISTOTLE (_concluded_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
XXI.--THE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
XXII.--THE STOICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
{1}
CHAPTER I
THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS
_The question of Thales--Water the beginning of things--Soul in all
things--Mystery in science--Abstraction and reality--Theory of
development_
I. THALES.--For several centuries prior to the great Persian invasions
of Greece, perhaps the very greatest and wealthiest city of the Greek
world was Miletus. Situate about the centre of the Ionian coasts of
Asia Minor, with four magnificent harbours and a strongly defensible
position, it gathered to itself much of the great overland trade, which
has flowed for thousands of years eastward and westward between India
and the Mediterranean; while by its great fleets it created a new world
of its own along the Black Sea coast. Its colonies there were so
numerous that Miletus was named 'Mother of Eighty Cities.' From Abydus
on the Bosphorus, past Sinope, and so onward to the Crimea and the Don,
and thence round to Thrace, a busy community of colonies, mining,
manufacturing, ship-building, corn-raising, owned Miletus for their
mother-city. Its {2} marts must therefore have been crowded with
merchants of every country from India to Spain, from Arabia to Russia;
the riches and the wonders of every clime must have become familiar to
its inhabitants. And fitly enough, therefore, in this city was born
the first notable Greek geographer, the first constructor of a map, the
first observer of natural and other curiosities, the first recorder of
varieties of custom among various communities, the first speculator on
the causes of strange phenomena,--Hecataeus. His work is in great part
lost, but we know a good deal about it from the frequent references to
him and it in the work of his rival and follower, Herodotus.
