Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/406

 388 HISTORY OF GREECE. Ionia became subject to the Persians, (540-530 B.C.) He was the founder of what is called the Eleatic school of philosophers, a real school, since it appears that Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus, pursued and developed, in a great degree, the train of speculation which had been begun by Xenophanes, doubtless with additions and variations of their own, but especially with a dialectic power which belongs to the age of Perikles, and is un- known in the sixth century B.C. He was the author of more than one poem of considerable length, one on the foundation of Kolophon and another on that of Elea ; besides his poem on Nature, wherein his philosophical doctrines were set forth. 1 His manner appears to have been controversial and full of asperity towards antagonists ; but what is most remarkable is the plain- spoken manner in which he declared himself against the popular religion, and in which he denounced as abominable the descrip- tions of the gods given by Homer and Hesiod.' 3 He is said to have controverted the doctrines both of Thales and Pythagoras : this is probable enough ; but he seems to have taken his start from the philosophy of Anaximandcr, not, however, to adopt it, but to reverse it, and to set forth an opin- ion which we may call its contrary. Nature, in the conception of Anaximander, consisted of a Something having no other attribute except the unlimited power of generating and cancelling phe- nomenal changes : in this doctrine, the something or substratum existed only in and for those changes, and could not be said to exist at all in any other sense : the permanent was thus merged and lost in the variable, the one in the many. Xenophanes laid down the exact opposite : he conceived Nature as one unchangea- ble and indivisible whole, spherical, animated, endued with reason, and penetrated by or indeed identical with God : he denied the objective reality of all change, or generation, or destruction, which he seems to have considered as only changes or modifica- tions in the percipient, and perhaps different in one percipient and another. That which exists, he maintained, could not have been generated, nor could it ever be destroyed : there was neither real generation nor real destruction of anything ; but that which 1 Diogcr. Lnert. ix, 22; Stobaeus, Eclopr. Phvs. i, p. 294.
 * Sextu? Empiricus, alv. Mathcm. ix, 193.