252 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



Onesicritus. 



Monimus. 



Crates. 



Review of 

 the Cynical 

 doctrines. 



Being asked, what animals were most dangerous in the bite ? "Of 

 wild animals," he replied, " a detractor; of tame, a flatterer." 



Seeing some women hanged upon an olive-tree, " I wish," remarked 

 he, " that all trees bore the same fruit !" 



To one who reproached him with living in dirty and discreditable 

 places, "The sun," replied he, "can shine upon kennels, without 

 disparagement to himself!" 



Upon seeing an old woman painted, he observed, " If you do this 

 to gratify the living, you are mistaken in the effect; if it is for the 

 dead, lose no time in joining them." 



Among the friends of Diogenes are mentioned Onesicritus, Monimus, 

 and Crates ; the first of these, however, did not continue in the school 

 of the Cynics at Athens, but attended the army of Alexander the 

 Great in his Indian expedition. Monimus seems to have been pos- 

 sessed with much of the extravagance of his friend and model Diogenes ; 

 and a saying of his is preserved, which is at once very suitable to his 

 character as a man of lively and changeful impressions, and veiy 

 remarkable as containing the germ of the Sceptical system. It is 

 recorded to have been his doctrine, that there is no such thing as 

 reality ; but that all objects are the conceptions and creations of our 

 own mind producing fantastic illusions, or semblances of external 

 objects ; and that the whole is but a dream or show. Crates was a 

 philosopher of a very different cast, and seems to have aimed at moral 

 instruction under the guise of levity and petulance. He w r as not at 

 all of a saturnine complexion ; but made it his aim to give much 

 oblique reproof, and to qualify many salutary but offensive reflections, 

 with the appearance of ridicule and humour. The real good nature 

 and kindness of his purpose were duly appreciated by his fellow- 

 citizens ; and whilst he was admired by strangers for his festive wit, 

 and for the poignancy and vivacity of his sallies, he was frequently 

 used as an umpire by his fellow-townsmen in their mercantile or 

 family disputes ; and his good sense and impartiality gave authority 

 to his verdicts. He was the last, and, with the exception, perhaps, 

 of Antisthenes, the most creditable teacher in the school of derision ; 

 and, indeed, his good sense and his constitutional vivacity seem so 

 much to have modified his character, that if he was a Cynic by system 

 and profession, he was in practice such a philosopher as might have 

 belonged to any age, and as any school might have been proud 

 to own. 



Such was the course of the Cynical school among the Greeks. Its 

 prevailing characters were a contempt of pleasure, a disregard to the 

 distinctions of society, and an utter insensibility to decorum. 



With regard to pleasure, moralists of all sects have concurred in 

 admitting, that it is not, in its vulgar sense, to be made an ultimate 

 object of pursuit ; that first impressions are to be distrusted ; and that 

 mere prudence and self-regard will point out the superiority of the 

 intellectual and moral enjoyments, over the hollow gratifications of 



