Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/274

252 252 HISTORY OF THE annihilation. For, as he says himself, in some sonorous verses,* " How could that which exists, first will to exist ? how could it hecome what it is not ? If it becomes what it is not, it no longer exists ; and the same, if it begins to exist. Thus all idea of creation is extinguished; and annihilation is incredible." Although in this and other passages the expression of such abstract ideas in epic metre and language may excite surprise, yet there is great harmony between the matter of Parmenides and the form in which he has clothed it. His pantheistic doctrine of existence, which he pursued into all its logical consequences, and to which he sacrificed all the evidence of the senses, appeared to him a great and holy revelation. His whole poem on nature was composed in this spirit ; and he expressed (though in figurative language) his genuine sentiments, when he related that " the coursers which carry men as far as thought can reach, accompanied by the virgins of the Sun, brought him to the gates of day and night; that here Justice, who keeps the key of the gate, took him by the hand, addressed him in a friendly manner, and announced to hitn that he was destined to know everything, the fearless spirit of convincing truth, and the opinions of mortals in which no sure trust is to be placed, &c."t And accordingly his poem, in pursuance of the subject mentioned in these verses, began with the doctrine of pure existence, and then proceeded to an explana- tion of the phenomena of external nature. It was given in the form of a revelation by the goddess Justice, who was described as passing from the first to the second branch of the subject in the following manner : " Here I conclude my sure discourse and thoughts upon truth ; hence- forward hear human opinions, and listen to the deceitful ornaments of my speech." Here however Parmenides evidently disparages his own labours ; for, although in this second part he departed from his funda- mental principle, still it is clear, from the fragments which exist, that he never lost sight of his object of bringing the opinions founded on ex- ternal perceptions, into closer accordance with the knowledge of pure intellect. § 12. As compared with this great luminary of philosophical pan- theism, his successors (whose youth, at least, falls in the time of which we are treating) appear as lesser lights. It will be sufficient for our purpose to explain the philosophical character of Melissus and Zeno. The first was a native of Samos, and was distinguished as being the general who resolutely defended his city against the Athenians, in the war of Olyrnp. 85. 1. B.C. 440, and even defeated the Athenian fleet, in the absence of Pericles. He followed close upon Parmenides, whose doctrines he appears to have transferred into Ionic prose ; and thus gave greater perspicuity and order to the arguments which the former Eleaticse. f Sext. Empir. adv. Mathem. vii. 111. Comm, Eleat. v. 1 sqq.
 * Ap. Simplic. ad Aristot. Phys. f. 31. b. v. 80 sqq. in Brandis Commeutationes