Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/89



1. proceed to consider the philosophy of Thales, if indeed the term philosophy may be applied to so meagre and barren a system. Thales and the other inquirers of the Ionic school appear at first sight naturalists (physici rather than philosophers). When these systems are looked at in their letter they seem to be entirely physical; it is only when their spirit is attended to that they can be pronounced to some extent philosophical. First, then, What did Thales regard as the ultimately real, the absolutely true? For, as was formerly said, this is what philosophy undertakes; or at least endeavours, to ascertain. The determination of this question is identical with the search for unity amid multiplicity; in other words, is identical with an agency after some common principle, which is the groundwork of all things, and which remains unchanged amid all the changes of the universe. What, then, according to Thales, is the ultimately real, the one in the many, the