Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/151

Rh ANTISTHENES 137 the middle of the 4th century B.C. Ho may be regarded as an elder contemporary of Plato. In youth he studied rhetoric under Gorgias, perhaps also under Prodicus and Hippias. These studies bore fruit, not merely in the stylistic ability which made his writings eulogised by later critics, but more especially in the doctrine he after ward held, that the study of names was the first step in education. He opened a school of his own, and was on the way to distinguish himself in the usual course of oratory, when he met with Socrates, and his views of life underwent a change. From that time he became the inseparable admirer of Socrates, to hear whom he walked every morn ing from Pirosus to Athens, a distance of about 5 miles. Antisthenes was poor, and lived in the midst of a com mercial population which had suffered severely from the disasters attending the downfall of the Athenian empire. He became the philosopher of the proletariate, carrying into the haunts of the indigent and the vicious those prin ciples which had been spreading in wealthier circles, and modifying them to suit altered circumstances. His earlier culture had always been more literary and rhetorical than strictly philosophical, and he never attained a mastery over metaphysical problems. Aristotle speaks of him as un educated and simple-minded ; and Plato has been under stood, in more places than one, to refer to the zeal without knowledge with which he dwelt upon the difficulties of dialectic. Words and names were to him more important than thoughts The puzzle of the one and the many, which then was so prominent, led him to the strange con clusion that we can never say that one thing (or name) is another, as that a tree is green, but only that a tree is a tree. Such an adhesion to identical propositions as the sole form of judgment led him to deny the possibility of contradiction altogether. He objected to the Platonic theory of the substantive existence of relative and quali tative terms, such as good or beauty. The dramatising legend shows him putting out his criticism thus: &quot;Plato,&quot; he said, &quot;I can see a horse, and I can see a man; but humanity and horsehood I cannot see. ;j &quot; True,&quot; replied Plato, &quot; you have the eye which sees a horse and a man ; but the eye which can see horsehood and manhood you have not.&quot; The idea expressed by the so-called abstract term was to Antisthenes merely subjective a bare concep tion (I/LT] cwoia) in the mind. Antisthenes, in short, opposes a crude Realism to the Idealism of Plato The attitude of Antisthenes towards intellectual philosophy is in the main negative, and the general result he comes to is that logical or metaphysical investigations which go beyond name are unfruitful and frivolous. A certain training is, however, necessary before a man can become what Antisthenes wishes him to be his own master, independent of all external goods and social ties. This preparation consists in the laborious endeavour (TTOVOS) to raise himself above those external circumstances of human life which reflection shows to be useless and vain show (TV^OS). We must separate what we really are by nature from our artificial surroundings, so as to dis cover the minimum of real wants in life ; and then fixing our mind on that standard, we must discard whatever is desirable only because popular opinion calls for it. Seeing that nature needs but little, and that this little is easily attained, if we do not insist on the delusions which attend it, the wise man will, it is true, gratify the natural cravings, but will not do more. These inevitable appetites of sex and food being satisfied, without the additions and refine ments which art and fashion require, he will renounce pleasure as such. In the paradoxical language of Antis thenes, he would rather plunge into insanity than into pleasure. His aim must be to become, as much as may be, independent of everything outside, using it as needful, but not desiring it as a gratification. Such a mastery of self is what is called virtue, and is enough for happiness. It is hard to win, but once attained it can never be lost. The Cynic is one who surrenders the city of human life, with its varied scenes, on account of the difficulty of keeping his ground, and who is content if he can hold out the barren rock of the citadel as a soldier, constantly on the watch and in procinctu. Unfortunately this conception of a minimum of needs is somewhat vague, and allows many degrees. Diogenes could criticise and improve upon Antistheues, and the Indian gymnosophists pointed out that Diogenes himself exceeded the strict demands of nature. Antisthenes, though he did not encourage the formality of a school, and drove away the curious or enthusiastic with his staff, taught others by his example and by his caustic words. The Cynic was something of a missionary. He adopted a peculiar garb, at first perhaps for reasons of economy, but subsequently as a symbol of his profession. A rough cloak, which could be doubled to counterfeit an inner garment, and served the purposes of a night covering ; a wallet, in which provisions could be carried ; a staff to support his steps, and perhaps something from which to drink, constituted the property of the bare-footed Cynic ; and to these was afterwards added a long beard. The successors of Antisthenes lived, like mendicant friars, on the alms of the public, and wandered from place to place, sleeping by night on the steps of public buildings, or occupying any vessel or tub which might suit their pur pose. Antisthenes himself seems not to have been speci ally extravagant in conduct ; but the later Cynics, who were without his early culture, made it a point to disregard all decency and social conventions. Whatever they had to do they deemed it their duty to do in public at least such is the tenor of many tales. The wise man, they held, would follow another law than that of his city ; he was a citizen of the world. Sexual desires he would unquestionably have to satisfy, but in the most convenient way, without regard to sentimental objections or to beauty the uglier the better. Some, at least, of the Cynics main tained the advisability of a community of wives. They allowed to no ceremonies more than a relative force. According to Diogenes, the practice of cannibalism among certain tribes shows that the prohibition against eating human flesh is no part of the code of nature. So far the Cynics taught practically. But they were also great in repartee and sarcasm. The fine touch of Socratic irony, which had given offence by talking occa sionally about pots and pans, was succeeded by a rough and sometimes gross satire, which scrupled not to deal with matters viler still. Antisthenes, it is said, had some powers of social attraction ; but if it were so, his succes sors were more marked by the severity of their rebukes. From the Homeric poems, the Bible of the Greeks, they drew many of the weapons of their warfare, parodying its language, and applying it to suit their own circumstances. Public manners, men, and measures were assailed in no merciful spirit. Antisthenes compared the cry of demo cratic politicians to the speech in which the hares demanded equality of rights from the lion. He was equally at odds with the aesthetic and literary tendencies of his time. Aristippus, Plato, and Isocrates were among his literary enmities. Nor was he less trenchant in his criticisms of popular superstitions, of soothsayers, and mystery-mongers. When the priest dilated in his sermon on the blessedness of the other world for the initiated, Antisthenes interrupted him with the words: &quot; Why don t you die, then?&quot; Antisthenes was a voluminous writer ; his works, accord ing to Diogenes Laertius, filled ten volumes. Of these scarcely anything is left. They seem to have been on II. iS