anaximander's book. 279 



Theophrastus did was in effect to expand these pronouncements of liis 

 teacher, using where he could the original texts for fuller statements, 

 and criticising the views reported at greater length. Thus in a real 

 sense the doxographic tradition is essentially Aristotelian. Now with 

 the advance in the critical study of early Greek thought it has become 

 increasingly apparent that Aristotle, with all his advantages and 

 excellences, was not a safe guide for the interpretation of texts. 

 Great as a systematizer and keen as a critic, he lacked the true his- 

 torical sense; hence the manifest need of going, so to speak, behind 

 the returns, of checking the Aristotelian account wherever possible 

 by other data. Besides the authentic fragments of the early thinkers, 

 to which the historian will have recourse, other sources of information 

 exist, which it is not now necessary to discuss in detail; but it is of 

 some importance to trace this tradition, which we may rightly call 

 Aristotelian, somewhat farther back. 



Behind Aristotle stands Plato, to whom we owe relatively few but 

 precious statements regarding the opinions of his predecessors. Pos- 

 sessing perhaps the keenest intellect known to history, he was endowed 

 likewise with that rarest of all gifts, the faculty of entering sympatheti- 

 cally into the point of view of men from whom he radically differed. 

 This is what made him the greatest master of the philosophical dia- 

 logue, and might have made him the greatest dramatic genius, had 

 he not fallen under the spell of Socrates. Not a slave to system, but 

 following the argument wherever it might lead, two interests — per- 

 haps, rather instincts — alone seemed to govern his thinking and 

 writing, the love of truth and an innate sense of form. From such a 

 man we may expect, as indeed we receive, reports which, when scruti- 

 nized with reference to his intention, are transparently true. 



Before Plato we do not find in the works of philosophers references 

 to one another which are of such a character as to yield appreciable 

 assistance to the student of their opinions. There is, however, even 

 here something that may be called a tradition: it concerns the very 

 fundamental matter of the conception of the philosopher and of 

 philosophy. We cannot here pause to review the evidence as to the 

 employment of such terms as 'sage,' 'sophist' and 'philosopher'; 

 but so much may be said to be beyond question: w^hether the old 

 Milesians did or did not use the terms philosopher and philosophy, 

 a change at least came in their employment by Heraclitus and the 

 Pythagoreans. However much indebted both Heraclitus and Pytha- 

 goras were to the Milesians, they cannot have failed to perceive that 

 they were making a distinct departure in their points of view and in 



