Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/680

664 the old kindreds with which the primitive cults were inseparably entwined," and the substitution of an unsatisfactory "anthropomorphic and more or less Panhellenic polytheism," had an important effect on philosophy. The process by which "religion influenced Greek thought through such men as Pythagoras, was by introducing the idea that philosophy was above all things a way of life," and this remained in the whole course of Greek philosophy a dominating idea. This is the idea on which the Pythagorean order is based, which was, according to Burnet, a "religious fraternity," and not a political organization, as Krische supposes. Further, Pythagoras was Ionian, not Dorian. In all this Burnet is certainly right; he is also probably correct, in the main, in his idea of the Pythagorean rules of life being merely "taboos" of a primitive type. In separating the chapter on the Pythagoreans from that on Pythagoras, I do not see that anything is gained by making the subject-matter subservient to chronology. On the subject of the theistic teaching of Xenophanes, about which Freudenthal's book (Die Theologie des Xenophanes) has brought out considerable discussion, Burnet tries to effect a compromise (p. 119) between the polytheistic view (held by Freudenthal) and the view that his teaching was monotheistic (held by Zeller and Diels). Burnet agrees with Zeller in his interpretation of Ps. Plut. in Eus. pr. evang. I, 84, Dox. p. 580(5te Aufl. p. 526), saying at the same time that "it is another question whether it is not merely part of the polemic against anthropomorphic gods, that is, according to Greek ideas, against gods in any real sense whatever." The author supposes Xenophanes to be chiefly interested in overthrowing anthropomorphic religion and that he sought the weapons for this in a modification of Anaximander's theory of the divinity of the innumerable worlds. Xenophanes, however, regards the universe as a unit and if "the universe is really a god, there can be nothing more primary than itself." In this way, Burnet supposes, Xenophanes arrived at his theistic doctrine. Within the universe, interpreted as a unity, there is room for other gods which are "reduced to material phenomena." The conception of a personal god is unknown to Xenophanes, as is also the distinction between matter and spirit. Burnet paraphrases frequently: "There is one (so-called) god, who is the greatest amongst (so-called) gods," and says apropos to the contradiction that "there is no greater difficulty in this juxtaposition of God and gods than there is in the similar juxtaposition of 'the all' and 'all things.'" These two hypotheses, which Burnet tries to harmonize, are, in the main, simply a restatement of what Zeller (5te Aufl. p. 533) had already said, the latter of which he (Z.) shows in his discussion of Freudenthal to be untenable. The author identifies the "dark" vapors of Herakleitos," which increase the moist element" (p. 157), with darkness itself, and this seems to me a