The last-named thinker would, no doubt, repudiate the title of pantheist; and it is certain that, under his treatment, pantheism has reverted, by a curious sort of atavism, to something much more nearly resembling the original doctrine of the Neo-Platonic school. Mr. Spencer tells us that the world is the manifestation of an unknowable Power. Plotinus said nearly the same, although not in such absolutely self-contradictory terms.524 Mr. Spencer constantly assumes, by speaking of354 it in the singular number, that the creative Power of which we know nothing is one; having, apparently, convinced himself of its unity by two methods of reasoning. First, he identifies the transcendent cause of phenomena with the absolute, which is involved in our consciousness of relation; leaving it to be inferred that as relativity implies plurality, absoluteness must imply unity. And, secondly, from the mutual convertibility of the physical forces, he infers the unity of that which underlies force. Plotinus also arrives at the same result by two lines of argument, one posteriori, and derived from the unity pervading all Nature; the other priori, and derived from the fancied dependence of the Many on the One. Even in his use of the predicate Unknowable without a subject, Mr. Spencer has been anticipated by Damascius, one of the last Neo-Platonists, who speaks of the supreme principle as τ? ?γνωστον.525 And the same philosopher anticipates the late Father Dalgairns in suggesting the very pertinent question, how, if we know nothing about the Unknowable, we know that it is unknowable."Nothing of the kind. I have procured the key to the back part of the premises from Prout, who has the profoundest respect for my sagacity. When I pointed out that notice in the Globe to him he proposed to have the house watched, which is so like a policeman's intellect."
Director
When the power and value of these primitive speculations can no longer be denied, their originality is sometimes questioned by the systematic detractors of everything Hellenic. Thales and the rest, we are told, simply borrowed their theories without acknowledgment from a storehouse of Oriental wisdom on which the Greeks are supposed to have drawn as freely as Coleridge drew on German philosophy. Sometimes each system is affiliated to one of the great Asiatic religions; sometimes they are all traced back to the schools of Hindostan. It is natural that no two critics should agree, when the rival explanations are based on nothing stronger than superficial analogies and accidental coincidences. Dr. Zeller in his wonderfully learned, clear, and sagacious work on Greek philosophy, has carefully sifted some of the hypotheses referred to, and shown how destitute they are of internal or external evidence, and how utterly they fail to account for the facts. The oldest and best authorities, Plato and Aristotle, knew nothing about such a derivation of Greek thought from Eastern sources. Isocrates does, indeed, mention that Pythagoras borrowed his philosophy7 from Egypt, but Isocrates did not even pretend to be a truthful narrator. No Greek of the early period except those regularly domiciled in Susa seems to have been acquainted with any language but his own. Few travelled very far into Asia, and of those few, only one or two were philosophers. Democritus, who visited more foreign countries than any man of his time, speaks only of having discussed mathematical problems with the wise men whom he encountered; and even in mathematics he was at least their equal.9 It was precisely at the greatest distance from Asia, in Italy and Sicily, that the systems arose which seem to have most analogy with Asiatic modes of thought. Can we suppose that the traders of those times were in any way qualified to transport the speculations of Confucius and the Vedas to such a distance from their native homes? With far better reason might one expect a German merchant to carry a knowledge of Kants philosophy from K?nigsberg to Canton. But a more convincing argument than any is to show that Greek philosophy in its historical evolution exhibits a perfectly natural and spontaneous progress from simpler to more complex forms, and that system grew out of system by a strictly logical process of extension, analysis, and combination. This is what, chiefly under the guidance of Zeller, we shall now attempt to do.II.Lanaeken seemed to have been reoccupied by the Belgians, after the occurrences of the previous Sunday. When I entered the place, I found the192 greater number of the men round about the station.Lige now loomed up in the distance, and the nearer I got, the more civilians I met. They all wore a white armlet, and walked timidly and nervously by the side of the road or street, starting at39 each thunder-clap of the guns. Near the entrance to the town a small crowd stood on one of the hills, looking at a flying-machine moving from fort to fort and over the city, obviously investigating the effect of the German siege-guns.The traction of belts upon pulleys, like that of locomotive wheels upon railways, being incapable of demonstration except by actual experience, for a long time hindered the introduction of belts as a means of transmitting motion and power except in cases when gearing or shafts could not be employed. Motion is named separately, because with many kinds of machinery that are driven at high speedsuch as wood machinesthe transmission of rapid movement must be considered as well as power, and in ordinary practice it is only by means of belts that such high speeds may be communicated from one shaft to another.