Their logical theory — nothing knowable except the phenomenal, our own sensations and feelings — no knowledge of the absolute.

Such were (as far as our imperfect evidence goes) the ethical and emotional views of the Kyrenaic school: their theory and precepts respecting the plan and prospects of life. In regard to truth and knowledge, they maintained that we could have no knowledge of anything but human sensations, affections, feelings, &c. (πάθη): that respecting the extrinsic, extra-sensational, absolute, objects or causes from whence these feelings proceeded, we could know nothing at all. Partly for this reason, they abstained from all attention to the study of nature — to astronomy and physics: partly also because they did not see any bearing of these subjects upon good and evil, or upon the conduct of life. They turned their attention mainly to ethics, partly also to logic as subsidiary to ethical reasoning.214

Such low estimation of mathematics and physics and attention given almost exclusively to the feelings and conduct of human life — is a point common to the opposite schools of Aristippus and Antisthenes, derived by both of them from Sokrates. Herein Plato stands apart from all the three.

The theory of Aristippus, as given above, is only derived from a meagre abstract and from a few detached hints. We do not know how he himself stated it: still less how he enforced and vindicated it. — He, as well as Antisthenes, composed dialogues: which naturally implies diversity of handling. Their main thesis, therefore — the text, as it were, upon which they debated or expatiated (which is all that the abstract gives) — affords very inadequate means, even if we could rely upon the accuracy of the statement, for appreciating their philosophical competence. We should form but a poor idea of the acute, abundant, elastic and diversified dialectic of Plato, if all his dialogues had been lost — and if we had nothing to rely upon except the summary of Platonism prepared by Diogenes Laertius: which summary, nevertheless, is more copious and elaborate than the same author has furnished either of Aristippus or Antisthenes.

Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus passed to the Stoics and Epikureans.

In the history of the Greek mind these two last-mentioned philosophers (though included by Cicero among the plebeii philosophi) are not less important than Plato and Aristotle. The speculations and precepts of Antisthenes passed, with various enlargements and modifications, into the Stoic philosophy: those of Aristippus into the Epikurean: the two most widely extended ethical sects in the subsequent Pagan world. — The Cynic sect, as it stood before it embraced the enlarged physical, kosmical, and social theories of Zeno and his contemporaries, reducing to a minimum all the desires and appetites — cultivating insensibility to the pains of life, and even disdainful insensibility to its pleasures — required extraordinary force of will and obstinate resolution, but little beyond. Where there was no selection or discrimination, the most ordinary prudence sufficed. It was otherwise with the scheme of Aristippus and the Kyrenaics: which, if it tasked less severely the powers of endurance, demanded a far higher measure of intelligent prudence. Selection of that which might safely be enjoyed, and determination of the limit within which enjoyment must be confined, were constantly indispensable. Prudence, knowledge, the art of mensuration or calculation, were essential to Aristippus, and ought to be put in the foreground when his theory is stated.

Ethical theory of Aristippus is identical with that of the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras.

That theory is, in point of fact, identical with the theory expounded by the Platonic Sokrates in Plato’s Protagoras. The general features of both are the same. Sokrates there lays it down explicitly, that pleasure per se is always good, and pain per se always evil: that there is no other good (per se) except pleasure and diminution of pain — no other evil (per se) except pain and diminution of pleasure: that there is no other object in life except to live through it as much as possible with pleasures and without pains;215 but that many pleasures become evil, because they cannot be had without depriving us of greater pleasures or imposing upon us greater pains while many pains become good, because they prevent greater pains or ensure greater pleasures: that the safety of life thus lies in a correct comparison of the more or less in pleasures and pains, and in a selection founded thereupon. In other words, the safety of life depends upon calculating knowledge or prudence, the art or science of measuring.

Difference in the manner of stating the theory by the two.

The theory here laid down by the Platonic Sokrates is the same as that of Aristippus. The purpose of life is stated almost in the same words by both: by the Platonic Sokrates, and by Aristippus in the Xenophontic dialogue — “to live through with enjoyment and without suffering.” The Platonic Sokrates denies, quite as emphatically as Aristippus, any good or evil, honourable or base, except as representing the result of an intelligent comparison of pleasures and pains. Judicious calculation is postulated by both: pleasures and pains being assumed by both as the only ends of pursuit and avoidance, to which calculation is to be applied. The main difference is, that the prudence, art, or science, required for making this calculation rightly, are put forward by the Platonic Sokrates as the prominent item in his provision for passing through life: whereas, in the scheme of Aristippus, as far as we know it, such accomplished intelligence, though equally recognised and implied, is not equally thrust into the foreground. So it appears at least in the abstract which we possess of his theory; if we had his own exposition of it, perhaps we might find the case otherwise. In that abstract, indeed, we find the writer replying to those who affirmed prudence or knowledge, to be good per se — and maintaining that it is only good by reason of its consequences:216 that is, that it is not good as End, in the same sense in which pleasure or mitigation, of pain are good. This point of the theory, however, coincides again with the doctrine of the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras: where the art of calculation is extolled simply as an indispensable condition to the most precious results of human happiness.

What I say here applies especially to the Protagoras: for I am well aware that in other dialogues the Platonic Sokrates is made to hold different language.217 But in the Protagoras he defends a theory the same as that of Aristippus, and defends it by an elaborate argument which silences the objections of the Sophist Protagoras; who at first will not admit the unqualified identity of the pleasurable, judiciously estimated and selected, with the good. The general and comprehensive manner in which Plato conceives and expounds the theory, is probably one evidence of his superior philosophical aptitude as compared with Aristippus and his other contemporaries. He enunciates, side by side, and with equal distinctness, the two conditions requisite for his theory of life. 1. The calculating or measuring art. 2. A description of the items to which alone such measurement must be applied — pleasures and pains. — These two together make the full theory. In other dialogues Plato insists equally upon the necessity of knowledge or calculating prudence: but then he is not equally distinct in specifying the items to which such prudence or calculation is to be applied. On the other hand, it is quite possible that Aristippus, in laying out the same theory, may have dwelt with peculiar emphasis upon the other element in the theory: i.e. that while expressly insisting upon pleasures and pains, as the only data to be compared, he may have tacitly assumed the comparing or calculating intelligence, as if it were understood by itself, and did not require to be formally proclaimed.

Distinction to be made between a general theory — and the particular application of it made by the theorist to his own tastes and circumstances.

A distinction must here be made between the general theory of life laid down by Aristippus — and the particular application which he made of that theory to his own course of proceeding. What we may observe is, that the Platonic Sokrates (in the Protagoras) agrees in the first, or general theory: whether he would have agreed in the second (or application to the particular case) we are not informed, but we may probably assume the negative. And we find Sokrates (in the Xenophontic dialogue) taking the same negative ground against Aristippus — upon the second point, not upon the first. He seeks to prove that the course of conduct adopted by Aristippus, instead of carrying with it a preponderance of pleasure, will entail a preponderance of pain. He does not dispute the general theory.

Kyrenaic theorists after Aristippus.

Though Aristippus and the Kyrenaic sect are recognised as the first persons who laid down this general theory, yet various others apart from them adopted it likewise. We may see this not merely from the Protagoras of Plato, but also from the fact that Aristotle, when commenting upon the theory in his Ethics,218 cites Eudoxus (eminent both as mathematician and astronomer, besides being among the hearers of Plato) as its principal champion. Still the school of Kyrênê are recorded as a continuous body, partly defending, partly modifying the theory of Aristippus.219 Hegesias, Annikeris, and Theodôrus are the principal Kyrenaics named: the last of them contemporary with Ptolemy Soter, Lysimachus, Epikurus, Theophrastus, and Stilpon.

Theodôrus — Annikeris — Hegesias.

Diogenes Laertius had read a powerfully written book of Theodôrus, controverting openly the received opinions respecting the Gods:—which few of the philosophers ventured to do. Cicero also mentions a composition of Hegesias.220 Of Annikeris we know none; but he, too, probably, must have been an author. The doctrines which we find ascribed to these Kyrenaics evince how much affinity there was, at bottom, between them and the Cynics, in spite of the great apparent opposition. Hegesias received the surname of the Death-Persuader: he considered happiness to be quite unattainable, and death to be an object not of fear, but of welcome acceptance, in the eyes of a wise man. He started from the same basis as Aristippus: pleasure as the expetendum, pain as the fugiendum, to which all our personal friendships and aversions were ultimately referable. But he considered that the pains of life preponderated over the pleasures, even under the most favourable circumstances. For conferring pleasure, or for securing continuance of pleasure — wealth, high birth, freedom, glory, were of no greater avail than their contraries poverty, low birth, slavery, ignominy. There was nothing which was, by nature or universally, either pleasurable or painful. Novelty, rarity, satiety, rendered one thing pleasurable, another painful, to different persons and at different times. The wise man would show his wisdom, not in the fruitless struggle for pleasures, but in the avoidance or mitigation of pains: which he would accomplish more successfully by rendering himself indifferent to the causes of pleasure. He would act always for his own account, and would value himself higher than other persons: but he would at the same time reflect that the mistakes of these others were involuntary, and he would give them indulgent counsel, instead of hating them. He would not trust his senses as affording any real knowledge: but he would be satisfied to act upon the probable appearances of sense, or upon phenomenal knowledge.221

Hegesias — Low estimation of life — renunciation of pleasure — coincidence with the Cynics.

Such is the summary which we read of the doctrines of Hegesias: who is said to have enforced his views,222 — of the real character of life, as containing a great preponderance of misfortune and suffering — in a manner so persuasive, that several persons were induced to commit suicide. Hence he was prohibited by the first Ptolemy from lecturing in such a strain. His opinions respecting life coincide in the main with those set forth by Sokrates in the Phædon of Plato: which dialogue also is alleged to have operated so powerfully on the Platonic disciple Kleombrotus, that he was induced to terminate his own existence. Hegesias, agreeing with Aristippus that pleasure would be the Good, if you could get it — maintains that the circumstances of life are such as to render pleasure unattainable: and therefore advises to renounce pleasure at once and systematically, in order that we may turn our attention to the only practicable end — that of lessening pain. Such deliberate renunciation of pleasure brings him into harmony with the doctrine of the Cynics.

Doctrine of Relativity affirmed by the Kyrenaics, as well as by Protagoras.

On another point, however, Hegesias repeats just the same doctrine as Aristippus. Both deny any thing like absolute knowledge: they maintain that all our knowledge is phenomenal, or relative to our own impressions or affections: that we neither do know, nor can know, anything about any real or supposed ultra-phenomenal object, i.e., things in themselves, as distinguished from our own impressions and apart from our senses and other capacities. Having no writings of Aristippus left, we know this doctrine only as it is presented by others, and those too opponents. We cannot tell whether Aristippus or his supporters stated their own doctrine in such a way as to be open to the objections which we read as urged by opponents. But the doctrine itself is not, in my judgment, refuted by any of those objections. “Our affections (πάθη) alone are known to us, but not the supposed objects or causes from which they proceed.” The word rendered by affections must here be taken in its most general and comprehensive sense — as including not merely sensations, but also remembrances, emotions, judgments, beliefs, doubts, volitions, conscious energies, &c. Whatever we know, we can know only as it appears to, or implicates itself somehow with, our own minds. All the knowledge which I possess, is an aggregate of propositions affirming facts, and the order or conjunction of facts, as they are, or have been, or may be, relative to myself. This doctrine of Aristippus is in substance the same as that which Protagoras announced in other words as — “Man is the measure of all things”. I have already explained and illustrated it, at considerable length, in my chapter on the Platonic Theætêtus, where it is announced by Theætetus and controverted by Sokrates.223

CHAPTER IV.

Xenophon — his character — essentially a man of action and not a theorist — the Sokratic element in him an accessory.

I shall not however give any complete analysis of Xenophon’s works: because both the greater part of them, and the leading features of his personal character, belong rather to active than to speculative Hellenic life. As such, I have dealt with them largely in my History of Greece. What I have here to illustrate is the Sokratic element in his character, which is important indeed as accessory and modifying — yet not fundamental. Though he exemplifies and attests, as a witness, the theorising negative vein, the cross-examining Elenchus of Sokrates it is the preceptorial vein which he appropriates to himself and expands in its bearing on practical conduct. He is the semi-philosophising general; undervalued indeed as a hybrid by Plato — but by high-minded Romans like Cato, Agricola, Helvidius Priscus, &c. likely to be esteemed higher than Plato himself.1 He is the military brother of the Sokratic family, distinguished for ability and energy in the responsible functions of command: a man of robust frame, courage, and presence of mind, who affronts cheerfully the danger and fatigues of soldiership, and who extracts philosophy from experience of the variable temper of armies, together with the multiplied difficulties and precarious authority of a Grecian general.2 For our knowledge, imperfect as it is, of real Grecian life, we are greatly indebted to his works. All historians of Greece must draw largely from his Hellenica and Anabasis: and we learn much even from his other productions, not properly historical; for he never soars high in the region of ideality, nor grasps at etherial visions — “nubes et inania” — like Plato.

Date of Xenophon — probable year of his birth.

Respecting the personal history of Xenophon himself, we possess but little information: nor do we know the year either of his birth or death. His Hellenica concludes with the battle of Mantineia in 362 B.C.. But he makes incidental mention in that work of an event five years later — the assassination of Alexander, despot of Pheræ, which took place in 357 B.C.3 — and his language seems to imply that the event was described shortly after it took place. His pamphlet De Vectigalibus appears to have been composed still later — not before 355 B.C. In the year 400 B.C., when Xenophon joined the Grecian military force assembled at Sardis to accompany Cyrus the younger in his march to Babylon, he must have been still a young man: yet he had even then established an intimacy with Sokrates at Athens: and he was old enough to call himself the “ancient guest” of the Bœotian Proxenus, who engaged him to come and take service with Cyrus.4 We may suppose him to have been then about thirty years of age; and thus to have been born about 430 B.C. — two or three years earlier than Plato. Respecting his early life, we have no facts before us: but we may confidently affirm (as I have already observed about5 Plato), that as he became liable to military service in 412 B.C., the severe pressure of the war upon Athens must have occasioned him to be largely employed, among other citizens, for the defence of his native city, until its capture in 405 B.C. He seems to have belonged to an equestrian family in the census, and therefore to have served on horseback. More than one of his compositions evinces both intelligent interest in horsemanship, and great familiarity with horses.

His personal history — He consults Sokrates — takes the opinion of the Delphian oracle.

Our knowledge of his personal history begins with what he himself recounts in the Anabasis. His friend Proxenus, then at Sardis commanding a regiment of Hellenic mercenaries under Cyrus the younger, wrote recommending him earnestly to come over and take service, in the army prepared ostensibly against the Pisidians. Upon this Xenophon asked the advice of Sokrates: who exhorted him to go and consult the Delphian oracle — being apprehensive that as Cyrus had proved himself the strenuous ally of Sparta, and had furnished to her the principal means for crushing Athens, an Athenian taking service under him would incur unpopularity at home. Xenophon accordingly went to Delphi: but instead of asking the question broadly — “Shall I go, or shall I decline to go?” — he put to Apollo the narrower question — “Having in contemplation a journey, to which of the Gods must I sacrifice and pray, in order to accomplish it best, and to come back with safety and success?” Apollo indicated to him the Gods to whom he ought to address himself: but Sokrates was displeased with him for not having first asked, whether he ought to go at all. Nevertheless (continued Sokrates), since you have chosen to put the question in your own way you must act as the God has prescribed.6

His service and command with the Ten Thousand Greeks; afterwards under Agesilaus and the Spartans. — He is banished from Athens.

The anecdote here recounted by Xenophon is interesting, as it illustrates his sincere faith, as well as that of Sokrates, in the Delphian oracle: though we might have expected that on this occasion, Sokrates would have been favoured with some manifestation of that divine sign, which he represents to have warned him afterwards so frequently and on such trifling matters. Apollo however was perhaps displeased (as Sokrates was) with Xenophon, for not having submitted the question to him with full frankness: since the answer given was proved by subsequent experience to be incomplete.7 After fifteen months passed, first, in the hard upward march — next, in the still harder retreat — of the Ten Thousand, to the preservation of whom he largely contributed by his energy, presence of mind, resolute initiative, and ready Athenian eloquence, as one of their leaders — Xenophon returned to Athens. It appears that he must have come back not long after the death of Sokrates. But Athens was not at that time a pleasant residence for him. The Sokratic companions shared in the unpopularity of their deceased master, and many of them were absent: moreover Xenophon himself was unpopular as the active partisan of Cyrus. After a certain stay, we know not how long, at Athens, Xenophon appears to have gone back to Asia; and to have resumed his command of the remaining Cyreian soldiers, then serving under the Lacedæmonian generals against the Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus. He served first under Derkyllidas, next under Agesilaus. For the latter he conceived the warmest admiration, and contracted with him an intimate friendship. At the time when Xenophon rejoined the Cyreians in Asia, Athens was not at war with the Lacedæmonians: but after some time, the hostile confederacy of Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, against them was organised: and Agesilaus was summoned home by them from Asia, to fight their battles in Greece. Xenophon and his Cyreians were still a portion of the army of Agesilaus, and accompanied him in his march into Bœotia; where they took part in his desperate battle and bloody victory at Koroneia.8 But he was now lending active aid to the enemies of Athens, and holding conspicuous command in their armies. A sentence of banishment, on the ground of Laconism, was passed against him by the Athenians, on the proposition of Eubulus.9

His residence at Skillus near Olympia.

How long he served with Agesilaus, we are not told. At the end of his service, the Lacedæmonians provided him with a house and land at the Triphylian town of Skillûs near Olympia, which they had seemingly taken from the Eleians and re-colonised. Near this residence he also purchased, under the authority of the God (perhaps Olympian Zeus) a landed estate to be consecrated to the Goddess Artemis: employing therein a portion of the tithe of plunder devoted to Artemis by the Cyreian army, and deposited by him for the time in the care of Megabyzus, priest of Artemis at Ephesus. The estate of the Goddess contained some cultivated ground, but consisted chiefly of pasture; with wild ground, wood and mountain, abounding in game and favourable for hunting. Xenophon became Conservator of this property for Artemis: to whom he dedicated a shrine and a statue, in miniature copy of the great temple at Ephesus. Every year he held a formal hunting-match, to which he invited all the neighbours, with abundant hospitality, at the expense of the Goddess. The Conservator and his successors were bound by formal vow, on pain of her displeasure, to employ one tenth of the whole annual produce in sacrifices to her: and to keep the shrine and statue in good order, out of the remainder.10