158 



PROFESSOR THOMPSON, ON THE GENUINENESS OF 



of Megara also'. I will only add, that the passage on which I have been commenting deserves, 

 in my opinion, a more careful study and closer analysis than it has yet received, and I shall 

 be very thankful for any remarks in elucidation of it which may be contributed either by those 

 who agree with my notions of its general import, or by those who take a totally opposite view". 



We pass now from the heavenly to the earthly ; from the serene repose of the transcenden- 

 talists, fxdXa evXafiws avwQev e^ aopuTov iroOev dfxuvo/uieviov, to the violence and fury of the 

 giant brood below, who seek to eject these divinities from their august abodes, " actually 

 hugging rocks and trees in their embrace," toTs x^P^'" "'''eX'"^* -n-erpas Kal Spv^ irepiXaix- 

 fiavovTe^, 24.6" a. 



Of these materialists — for such in the coarsest sense of the word they are — I remark, 

 first, that they are evidently the same set of people as those described in terms almost 

 identical by Plato in the Thecetetus, p. 155 e. At this point of the last-named dialogue 

 Socrates is about to expound the tenets of the Ephesian followers of Heraclitus ; whose 

 sensational theory, as he afterwards shews, agrees with that of the Cyrenaics in essentials, 

 though it was combined with cosmical or metaphysical speculations in which it may be doubted 

 whether they were followed by the Socratic sect. Before, however, he enters upon these 

 highflown subtleties, he humorously exhorts Theatetus to look round and see that they were 

 not overheard by " the uninitiated :" " those," he says, " who think nothing real, but that 

 which they can take hold of with both hands'; those who ignore the existence of such 

 things as ' actions,' and ' productions,' — in a word, of anything that is not an object of sight," 

 (irdv TO doparov ovk uTro^e-xpiJ-evot w<f ev ovcxias iiepei). These persons are garnished with 

 the epithets "hard," "stubborn," "thoroughly illiterate," aKXrjpol — dvTiTvirov — /xdX' ev 

 afxovcroc. 



Now the only contemporary philosopher to whom these epithets of Plato are applicable is 

 the founder of the Cynic school, Antisthenes, a man whose nature corresponded with his 

 name, and to whose name, as well as to his nature, the dvTLTviroi of the Thecetetus would be 

 felt to convey an allusion "intelligible to the intelligent." The fidX' eJ a/uovaoi finds its 

 echo in the synonymous epithet uTral^evToi, which Aristotle in the Metaphysica bestows on 

 Antisthenes and his followers*. Every one, however, must see, without further argument, that 

 the description in the Thecetetus tallies in all points with that in the Sophista, and that both 

 are in perfect agreement with what we know from Diog. Laertius and a host of others, of the 

 moral characteristics of the Cynic school ^. The materials of the comparison may be found in 



» This epithet I conceive to be justified by Cicero's notice, 

 '■Hi quoque (sc. Megarici) multa a Platone," Acad. Qu. ii. 

 42, and also by the brief statement of the Megaric dogmas 

 which Cicero gives us in the context of this passage. 



' In the Philebus — a dialogue which treats of therelation of 

 t>b<rla to yeveci! in its moral and physical, that is to say its 

 real, in distinction from the purely logical or formal aspect 

 under which it is presented in the Sophista — Plato postulates 

 a Tetrad, composed of the principles he there denotes as Limit, 

 the Unlimited, the Mixed or Concrete, and Cause. The third 

 principle he denominates yci/eert? eh ovaiav, the possibility of 

 which process is precisely what the clouiv <^i'\oi — the pure 



idealists of this dialogue— deny. Phileb. p. 24, foil. The dis- 

 tinctness of the Causal Principle from the Ideas is clearly laid 

 down in the Philebus, and is recognized in the Sophista also, 

 p. 265, §§ 109, 110. 



^ Compare Soph. 247 c : ciareii/otvr' av wav o fiti Suua-rol 

 Tals x^P*^' ^v/xirie^etf eltrii/ w9 dpa tovto ovSev to 

 'jrapdwav eiTTiv. 



VII. 3. 97 '. oi 'AuTtrrdeveLoi Kai oi outws aTraiSevTO^. 



* I have shewn in Appendix II. that the only other schools 

 who can in fairness be called "materialists," are out of the 

 question here. 



