Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/97

42 Even the cloud-compelling Jove himself, even he owed his supremacy as the general father of gods and men, and as the general ruler of the universe, rather to the elevated region in which he was supposed to dwell, the summit of cloud-capped Olympus, than to the notion of any universal presidency which he exercised over all created things.

Now, to these poetical fancies the philosophy of Thales, crude as it is, stands opposed. The mythological disposition aims, we may say, at finding the manifold in the manifold. It is satisfied with the infinitude of nature, and makes no attempt to reduce her phenomena to finitude and unity. If it is animated by the desire to reach the ultimately real, it is directed in this pursuit, not by the reason, but solely by feeling and imagination. Philosophy, on the other hand, aims at finding the one in the manifold. It attempts, by means of some principle, to reduce to unity the innumerable phenomena which press upon us from every side. Its researches are guided, not by the imagination, but by the reason. Even the philosophy of Thales evinces this tendency. It indicates a disposition of mind antagonistic to the mythological disposition, and therefore, meagre though it be, it is entitled to be regarded as the fountainhead of the great river of science which is now flowing through the world.

Secondly, another point of interest to be found