HtSTOIlY OF PHILOSOrHY. 567 



It is in the records of the two schools of Elea that we first meet with 

 systematic and distinct researches on the nature of human knowledge. 

 There is also this remarkable characteristic in their philosophers, that 

 though proceeding- on the same road, they were not enslaved by the 

 same ideas : they borrowed from their predecessors examples rather 

 than traditions, benefiting themselves by their experience, yet en- 

 deavouring to create science by their own efforts. In fine, their 

 theories are better developed, their reasonings more complete, and 

 their whole doctrine more homogeneous and harmonious in its several 

 parts, than in either of the great schools we have hitherto treated of. 

 The Eleatics are usually distributed into.two great classes, the ancient 

 and modern. We must not, however, include Heraclitus in either of 

 these classes, who by the originality of his views has effectually sepa- 

 rated himself from both. 



Thales and the lonians, more occupied with the study of nature 

 than of abstract ideas, in seeking for the first principle, did not enquire 

 how that principle itself came to exist, nor by virtue of what law the 

 primitive elements were converted into other substances. 



Pythagoras identifies the first cause of things with the first cause 

 of understanding, and he placed this last among the rational combina- 

 tions : but he referred all these combinations to sensible objects as a 

 means of classing them and marking their relations. 



The Eleatics addressed themselves to the question which the loriians 

 had neglected: they sought for the "wherefore" of the existence 

 of all things: they enquired how the commencement of their exist- 

 ence could take place, and that point being settled, how they could 

 be subjected to revolutions and changes. 



Following the example of Pythagoras they sought for the solution 

 of the problem in rational truth : they sought to determine a priori, 

 by the force of thought alone, how the universe came to be : but 

 more methodical, if not less enthusiastic, their speculations, instead 

 of running wild in the realms of imagination, were kept within the 

 bounds of reason and rigorous connexion. The Pythagoreans at- 

 tended chiefly to the affinities of things ; the Eleatics investigated 

 their substance and their essence. 



Although the Eleatics were the first philosophers who attempted 

 to trace out a positive theory of the human understanding, they by 

 no means made it the preliminary of their metaphysical speculations. 

 This would, no doubt, have been the natural course of things accord- 

 ing to the logical order of ideas : but it must be remembered that 

 they had the system to create, and were not, therefore, able at once 

 to arrange its different portions in the places which were afterwards 

 allotted to them. 



Xenophanes was a native of Colophon in Asia Minor, which seems 

 to have been the cradle of all the Greek philosophy. He quitted his 

 country to establish himself at Elea, occupied by a colony of Phocians. 

 I-ike Thales, he had no disciples; and a friend was the depositary 

 of his opinions. 



He was the first who gave an absolutely a priori argument as the 

 foundation of knowledge ; a purely speculative syllogism, anterior 



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