Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/505

 ELEATIC SCHOOL ELECAMPANE 497 cessor, Richard I., Coeur de Lion, who placed her at the head of the government on his de- parture for the Holy Land. She negotiated his marriage with the daughter of the king of Navarre, and went to Germany with his ran- som from captivity. She afterward retired to the abbey of Fontevrault, and surviving Rich- ard, lived to see him succeeded by one of her other sons, John, the signer of Magna Charta. ELEATIC SCHOOL, a group of Greek philoso- phers, beginning with Xenophanes of Colophon, who settled in Elea or Velia, a Greek colony of southern Italy, in the latter part of the 6th century B. C., and whose principal dis- ciples were Parmenides and Zeno, both of Elea, and Melissus of Samos. Some of the ancients also ranked Leucippus and Ernpedo- cles among them, but for this there is no evidence. The general spirit of the school may be denned as an attempt, perhaps the first ever made, to refer all science to the ab- solute and pure ideas of the reason. There are, according to the Eleatics, two kinds of knowledge, that which comes to us through the senses, and that which we owe to the reason alone. The science which is composed of the former is only an illusion, for it contains nothing true, fixed, and durable. The only certain science is that which owes nothing to the senses, and all to the reason. Children and the untaught may believe in the reality of sensible appearances, but the philosopher who seeks the foundation of things should appeal only to the reason. There are two principles in nature, on the one side fire or light, and on the other night, or thick and heavy matter. These principles are distinct but not separate ; they act in concert, playing together a perpetual and universal part in the world. The world is bounded by a circle of light as by a girdle, and is divided into three parts, in the central one of which necessity reigns supreme. The stars are but condensed fire, and the earth is the darkest and heaviest of all bodies. It is round, and placed by its own weight in the centre of the world. Men are born of the earth, warmed by the solar rays, and thought is a product of organization. From this com- mingling of fire and earth have begun all the things which our senses show us, and which will some time perish. But in all these physi- cal phenomena there is no true science. Rea- son is the exclusive source of certainty, and reason conceives and recognizes as true noth- ing but absolute, being, being in itself consid- ered, that is, as disengaged from every particu- lar, fleeting, and perishable circumstance, mod- ification, or accident. Thus everything which has ever begun to be, everything which is susceptible of change or modification, of birth or destruction, has no veritable existence ; it is not being, but only appearance. Besides being, in this sense of the word, there is, ac- cording to the Eleatics, only nothingness ; and as this is but the negation of all things, one can neither affirm it nor deny it. Being is eter- nal, unchangeable, self-existent ; it has neither past nor future, neither parts nor limits, neither division nor succession ; it is then an absolute unity, and everything else is but an illusion. Thus, the Eleatic system denies the data fur- nished by the senses, denies the generalizations and abstractions which the reason founds upon such data, and affirms only those necessary ideas which the reason owes solely to itself, and which it employs in its operations. The result is a pantheism, in Xenophanes resembling the blended material and spiritual pantheism of Spinoza, and in Parmenides approaching the spiritual idealistic pantheism of Fichte. ELEAZAR (Heb., God is help), the name of several ancient Hebrews, of whom the follow- ing are the most important. I. The third son of Aaron, who held in his father's lifetime the oversight of the Levitical order, and on Aaron's death was raised to the dignity of high priest. His pontificate was contemporary with the military government of Joshua, and the book of Joshua closes with an account of his death and burial. II. One of David's three mighty men, who smote the 'Philistines till his hand was weary, and who with two others broke through the Philistine host to bring to David a draught of water from the well at Bethlehem. ELECAMPANE (Fr. enule campane, from Lat. inula campana), the common name of the inula kelenium, a handsome herb of the order com- positce, which, introduced into America from Europe, is now common in our gardens, and grows wild in meadows and by the road- sides in the northern states. The root should be dug in autumn and of the second year's growth. It has an agreeable aromatic odor Elecampane (Inula helenium). when dried, somewhat like that of camphor, and its taste when chewed is warm and bitter ; water and alcohol extract its peculiar prop- erties, the latter most readily. Its extracts afford the vegetable principles alantine or in- uline, resembling starch, and helenine, which