but in the mere desire of transmuting itself from one form into another; for any real or definite end of development is not conceivable in the case of the eternal living fire: which notion Heraclitus expressed by rejecting every end and purpose of the mundane existence; and said, in a bold figure, 'To make worlds is Jove's pastime.""

Notwithstanding that Heraclitus posited this simple infinite substance as the cause of all things, he inconsistently maintained, that, by the swifter or slower motion of this ethereal fire, all the diversities of natural existence were produced, and an antagonistic dualism in all things established: the three great divisions or elementary principles being fire, earth, and water, between which. the relation of internal, external, and medial exists; water being the mediating principle between the two extremes, or the mean through which all changes are produced. In this way he conceived a universal antagonistic dualism in creation, effected by means of water, through the agency of which the two extremes of fire and earth became mixed in opposite natural forms. He says, "All is composed of opposites; so that the same is alike good and evil, living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old. The harmony of the world is of conflicting impulses, like that of the lyre and the bow." "Proceeding with this view, Heraclitus explained all the phenomena of nature by the concurrence of opposite tendencies and efforts in the motion of the eternal living fire." This was certainly an ingenious way of accounting for the dualistic condition in which it is perceived that nature exists; and has not been improved upon by the moderns, in their attempts to demonstrate that being and non-being are one and the same.

We have now taken notice of all the prominent theories produced by the Ionian School, which was the first independent school of philosophy in Greece; that is, the first in which Philosophy was realized separate from, and independent of, Religion: and we see that the demand of our science, that this development of philosophy should be ontological, and represent Creation first from a finite, and afterwards from an infinite substance, has been fully sustained. We see that this school commenced with a physiological theory corresponding with the Egyptian, and ended with a dynamical theory corresponding with the Persian, and representing in an external manner the same idea which after

* Ritter's History of Philosophy.

wards became realized by the Eleatic School from a more internal and rational point of view: for in coming into a psychological sphere of philosophical development where ontological ideas are connected with the consciousness, although the forms of philosophy become degraded, it obtains a more internal, self-conscious, and intellectual character, by which separate internal and external developments are demanded for each of its departments; and we accordingly find in Greece two distinct national elements, the Ionian and the Dorian, which were related as external and internal; a physiological development of philosophy being demanded by the former, and an intellectual development by the latter. Besides the Ionian, therefore, we have to notice the Italic School, which was founded by Pythagoras, as an intellectual statement of the material side of Ontology, or a representation of Creation from a Finite Substance; and the Eleatic School, founded by Xenophanes, as an intellectual statement of the spiritual side of Ontology, or a representation of Creation from an Infinite Substance. With regard to the first, we find that Pythagoras was ranked among the most eminent founders of scientific mathematics, and that he was chiefly occupied with Astronomy, with the determination of extension, and in measuring ratios of musical tones; and also that the philosophy of this school had its principal foundation in Mathematics and Music. It is true, that little, except tradition, remains to show what was the philosophy of Pythagoras; because, according to the most reliable authority, his school was broken up, while he and most of his disciples were slain; so that "the utmost that even conjecture can hazard is to suppose that the germ of the philosophical view (which was subsequently carried out by his disciples and followers) was pre-existent in the earlier lessons of Pythagoras." Enough, however, remains to show that his philosophy was characterized as material. Brucker says, "It may be conjectured, that Pythagoras, after the oriental philosophers, conceived of the Deity as a subtle fire, eternal, active, and intelligent, of which every human soul is a portion. Though he does not seem to have had the idea of a pure spirit, he nevertheless appears to have conceived of Him as incorporeal ; that is, as free from all the properties of gross matter, and as possessing the power of communicating motion, and of forming and directing the universe, with which He is intimately connected as its animating principle. Pythagoras probably did not

* Ritter's History of Philosophy.

admit two primary principles, but considered nature, in its original state, as one whole, animated by an intelligent but material principle, which at length separated itself from the chaotic mass, or detached passive matter from itself; after which, the subtle, active fire and the passive matter remained distinct principles." The mode in which this separation was supposed by the Pythagoreans to be effected is thus described by Ritter: "The Pythagoreans describe the origination of the world as a union. which came to pass between the opposite principles of the unlimited and the limited, the even and the odd: for they took the ground, that number is the principle of things; that number comprises within itself two species, — the odd and the even; that one or the unit is the odd and the even, or number absolutely, being the union of these two contraries. Now, the Pythagoreans conceived the first one, or the odd, — the genesis of which they did not investigate, to be surrounded by the infinite void; for with them the infinite is the place of the one. But, at the same time, they supposed a continual effort, on the part of the so-separated contraries, to effect a mutual union. Consequently the limiting one is constantly attracting to and into itself that part of the unlimited which is nearest to itself, and thereby limits it. This effort they call the inhaling of the infinite, or the infinite inspiration, by which the void comes into the world, and thereupon separates things one from another. From this it is evident that the One of the Pythagoreans was supposed primarily to be something perfectly inseparate, a continuous and indivisible magnitude; in which, however, there was an inherent faculty to dissolve itself, by the mediation of the separative void space, into a multiplicity of things. Thus, then, the Pythagorean doctrine of two opposite first principles appears to be in congruity with the fundamental doctrine, that all issues from one, and is ruled by one Supreme God, or the odd-even-in the primary number." With regard to the theory of the Universe that is peculiar to the Pythagorean school, we think it will be conceded by all who have examined the various and confused accounts which have come down to us of his obscure and symbolic system, that it was nothing more than an attempt to give a mathematical, that is, a geometrical and numerical, form to the ideas of the Ionian physiologists; that the One of the Pythagoreans was nothing more than the Water of Thales, and the Infinite Substance of Anaximander; and that the Odd and the Even, which are included in this One, are nothing but the active spirit and passive matter

there recognized, which here take the more intellectual form of Unity, and Diversity or Multiplicity, which they absurdly and arbitrarily refer to the same source; and from the union of which they conceived the world to be produced, under the symbols of the inhalation of the infinite, and the limiting of the unlimited. We may therefore see that the Italic philosophy, so far as it has been made known to us, corresponds completely with the demand made by Absolute Science for an internal and intellectual development of Ontology from a material point of view.

The Eleatic School, which is next in order, was founded by Xenophanes, and his principal followers were Parmenides and Zeno. Of this school, Ritter remarks, "The Eleatic School has in all ages, and not merely in modern times, attracted the attention of philosophers. It is pre-eminently distinguished from the Pythagorean and Ionian schools by the recklessness with which it strove to attain to an exclusive knowledge of the suprasensible; maintaining that the source of all truth was something independent of, and superior to, sense." Of Xenophanes he says, "The conviction had fallen on his mind, that God is One, besides whom no power exists, and in whom all truth and wisdom reside: but being unable to attain to a true knowledge of the Deity, and seeing that man is forced to represent to himself the individual,which, however, by itself, and separate from God, can have neither permanence nor being, and being ignorant how the cognition of individual phenomena could lead to a knowledge of the Deity, he found himself in a painful position; desiring, on the one hand, to arrive at a knowledge of God, who is the truth; and, on the other, forced to look to individuals, -in and by themselves, truthless appearances. The Eleatæ believed that they recognized, 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 to comprehend the divine truth in its reality; and that to suppose, in conformity with human cognition, that there is actually both a plurality and a change, would be but a cheat, and delusion of the senses." He again says, "Whatever estimate may be formed of the Eleatic doctrine and its results, it cannot be denied, that, as the first attempt to correct the conceptions and representations of sense by the pure notions of reason, it is in the highest degree deserving the attention of the philosopher. By it the pure, speculative

element of thought was first abstracted from all that is incidental in its concrete appearance, and consciousness awakened thereby to a true notion of philosophy."

M. Cousin, in alluding to this school, says, "Parmenides, who succeeds Xenophanes, is so much pre-occupied, according to the example of his master, with unity, that, perhaps without denying variety, he neglects it entirely. Zeno goes further: he does not neglect variety; he denies it; consequently he denies movement, consequently the existence of the world; and then you have opposed to each other two schools, both of which, placed upon the exclusive foundation, — one of the evidence of the senses, the other of rational abstraction, — recognizing unity alone without variety, or variety without unity, end in the negation of matter and of the world, or in that of free thought and of God, in an insufficient pantheism, and a chimerical atheism." Nothing, then, can be plainer than the fact, that an intellectual statement of the material side of Ontology by the Pythagorean was succeeded by an intellectual statement of the spiritual side of Ontology by the Eleatic School; because the antagonism between these schools is so extreme, and the opposite positions are so clearly taken, that no room is left for a question.

We have now arrived at the period in which a psychological development of philosophy is demanded. Up to this time, Philosophy has been principally confined to the contemplation of the relationship that exists between Absolute Substance and the phenomena of the Universe; because, as our science demands, and as the history of philosophy shows, the mind is developed from within outwards, so that the highest objects of contemplation are the first to occupy its attention, although the individual is at the same time confined to the lowest or most external and material sphere of consciousness. Philosophy always takes its departure from the Church, and is realized through an apprehensive recognition by the internal or intuitive sentimental powers, and by the principle of "Truth" in the Reason; a natural development of which, as the rational life of these sentimental powers, and of those things representative of the Spiritual which are presented by the Church, is realized at the commencement of the philosophical development; because the highest rational, intellectual, sentimental, and affectional powers are first in the order of development. By this union of internal life with external phenomena, conceptions are formed by the Imagination, which, as the highest constructive power of the Understanding, incarnates the superna