Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/134



1. sect derived its name from the town where its principal philosophers resided, Elea or Velia, a Greek settlement in southern Italy. The leaders of the Eleatic sect were Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno, to whom may be added Melissus. The general character of this school is, that its speculations rose into a higher region of abstraction or pure thought than those either of the Ionic or of the Pythagorean philosophers. While the tendency of the Ionic inquirers was physical, and while that of the Pythagoreans was mathematical or arithmetical, the Eleatic sect may be characterised as dialectical in their procedure. We shall see by-and-by what the movement in thought was which procured for this school the title of dialectical.

2. Xenophanes, a native of Colophon, one of the principal Ionic cities in Asia Minor, was the founder of this philosophy. A contemporary of Pythagoras,