The Vitality of Platonism and Other Essays

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THE VITALITY OF PLATONISM AND OTHER

ESSAYS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS ILontron: FETTER LANE, E.G. C.

CLAY, Manager

F.

(StsinhutQl)

loo,

:

Berlin: ILeipjig: i^jto

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A// rights reserved

CO., Ltd.

:

THE VITALITY OF PLATONISM AND OTHER

ESSAYS

BY

JAMES ADAM LATE FELLOW AND SENIOR TUTOR OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE,

CAMBRIDGE

EDITED BY

HIS

WIFE

ADELA MARION ADAM

Cambridge at

the University Press 191

1

A3

Cambrilrge

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

TOIC (J)|ATAT0IC

CYNecTi'oic

cmoi

re kai cyNTpAnezoic,

OYK ACHMOY noAeooc noAiTAic

'EMMANOYHA, ToAe TO BiBAiAApiON

eyMeNec n^pA eYMeNoyc KexApicGoa.

ei

MEN 0lAOCO(|)HTeON, (|)lAOC04)HTeON, TeON, dept), and also that ''just as our Soul, which is Air, holds us together, so also breath and Air encompass the whole Universe^" You will remember that Plato, too, in speaking of this theory, compares the i\ir to a ^dOpov or pedestal For the most part, however, supporting the earth I when Euripides writes in this vein, it is Aether and In a poet, of course, not Air which he calls Zeus. for

^

'

884 ff. Phaedo 99

-^

b.

Diels p. 22

^ 6,

25

§ 2.

;

The Aether

47

not to expect a clear distinction between

we ought

two

these

in Etiritides

although

concepts,

Anaxagoras had no doubt,

Euripides,

already differentiated them.

word ''Aether" partly as having a greater wealth of poetical and religious associations Thus in one fragment' we read than '\\ir." the

prefers

yata

koX Aio? AlOijp

/xeyto-T?;

" Mightiest Earth

and Aether of Zeus

"

Aether "home of Zeus," though Euripides sometimes describes the element Zeus's Aether," the Aether in in that way, but just which Zeus consists, the Aether of which Zeus is that

I

is,

believe,

not

''

made, in no respect different from Zeus himself. The remainder of the fragment clearly shews that

Zeus

is

here

identified

continues the poet,

''

is

with

'^^ether,"

Aether.

men and gods

the father of

womb

;

the falling rain

and Earth receives into her of dewy drops, and bears mortal men, aye, and But the most food, and the tribes of wild beasts." characteristic tion

is

example

in

Euripides of this identifica-

contained in the well-known lines opas Tov

v\j/ov

:

revs' aTretpov alO^pa

Kal yrjv Trept^ i)(pv&' vypal% Iv ayKciAais

TovTOV vo/xt^€ Zyjva, rovS rjyov Oiov^

thus translated by ^Ir

Way

;

:

:

"Seest thou the boundless ether there on high That folds the earth around with dewy arms? This deem thou Zeus, this reckon one with God." 1

839 Nauck^.

-

Fr.

aV^pOJTTOtS

941.

Cf.

6l'0{J.d^€TaL,

877

aA/V

alBrjp

tiktu

ae,

KOpa,

Zcvs

os

The Divine Origin of

48

Soul

the

more than a touch of what W. K. CHfford called ''cosmic emotion" in these verses. Nowhere, however, does ancient literature furnish a more There

is

expression

perfect

cosmic

of

feeling

or

a

finer

example of the poetical treatment of a philosophical conception than we meet with in a less known fragment of Euripides descriptive of the aetherial creative reason indwelling in the world :

ere

Tov avTOcfiVu, tov iv alOiptio

pvfx^ia TToivToiv i)(op€V€L^.

o;)(Xos

"Thee,

op^vaia

who

self-begotten,

in ether rolled

Ceaselessly round, by mystic links dost bind

The nature of all things, whom veils enfold Of light, of dark night flecked with gleams of gold, Of star-hosts dancing round thee without end."

Mr Way,

to

whom

compares the familiar

this translation

lines of

"I have

A

presence that disturbs

is

due, justly

Wordsworth

me

:

felt

with the joy

Of elevated thoughts a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns. ;

And And

A

the round ocean,

motion and a

We

rolls

may

spirit, ''the

through

say,

I

soul of

all

all

living air.

mind

of

man

:

that impels

spirit

All thinking things,

And

and the

the blue sky, and in the

objects of

all

thought,

things."

think, that in this all-pervading all '

the worlds," as he sometimes

593 Nauck-.

Euripides and Wordsworth calls

Wordsworth

it,

unity of Nature

have

it

the true and essential

finds

embraces, as Euripides would

the "nature of

said,

"Even

—

all

things,"

one essence of pervading

as

49

light

Shines in the brightest of ten thousand stars

And

meek worm that feeds in the dewy grass."

the

Couched

The

her lonely lamp

between Euripides and Wordsworth is here complete and in Virgil, too, we have exactly parallel

;

the

same conception

:

deum namque

omnes

per

ire

terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum'.

Some may be

disposed

to

this

call

philosophy,

and others, perhaps, religion but in truth it is only one particular way of trying to express that omnipresent unity which poetry and religion make us feel, which science also presupposes, and which it is perhaps the ultimate others

will

call

it

poetry,

;

goal of a philosophy of the sciences

believed

it

was

But to return. notice

named,

that this

— to I

in

think

each

—

Plato, at least,

demonstrate and of

it

is

the

apprehend.

deserving of particular three

poets

I

have

kind of poetical pantheism, or Nature-

mysticism, as

it

may more

appropriately be called,

accompanied not only by a deeper sense of the unity between man and nature, but also by a human weal and woe" profounder sympathy with It was a true than we readily find elsewhere. is

'*

instinct that '

A. E.

prompted Tennyson

Georgics

4.

221

f.

:

to put together in

also in Ae/ieid 6.

724

ff.

4

The Divine Origin of

50

the

Soul

a single stanza these two characteristics of Virgil's

poetry

:

"Thou

that seest Universal

Nature moved by Universal Mind;

Thou

majestic in thy sadness

At the doubtful doom of human kind."

The power inherent in Nature dwells also ''in the mind of man," so that the link which binds us to the one

us also

unites

remember

the

to

You

other.

will

that the later Stoics expressly founded

human brotherhood on

their doctrine of in all

men

that "

moves through

great

and

the presence

of the koivo% \6yos, or universal reason

lesser

all

things, mingling with the

Marcus Aurelius,

lights\"

for

example, reminds us that man's brotherhood with

mankind depends not on blood, or the generative but on community in mind (vov kolvcji/lo) each man's mind, he says, is God and an efflux from God" and God is ef? Sta iravToiv /cat ovcria "one God, one essence stretching through all fjiia, all

seed,

:

;

things"',"

present in Nature as well as in man.

humanism

of Euripides

is

but the language of the heart

mere accident

—

The

not an intellectual dogma, yet

;

it is

more than a

would rather say it is the operation of a law of nature that the most profoundly human of tragedians should have been the author of the greatest

I

—

nature-drama

of

antiquity,

I

mean,

of

course, the Bacchae.

So

far,

I

have spoken only of the peculiar kind ^

"

Hymn XII. 26.

of Cleanthes

1

2 3

f.

yjj

^

—

N

of Euripides

attire-mysticism,

51

sometimes found in That which Pindar calls " the gods" Euripides. has become, under the TO yap ian jiovov eV Sewv influence, perhaps, of Diogenes, an immanent, all-

of poetical theology which

is

—

embracing aetherial substance designated by the name of Zeus. Let us now turn from the divine to the human, and consider one or two of those passages in which the poet has in view the doctrine The fragment most of man's affinity to God.

commonly is

by the ancients

cited

in this

connexion

the line 6 vovs ya/j

"The

Our

first

iariv iv cKatrro) ^€os^.

qfx