ECLECTICISM.

CHAPTER I.

ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OK ECLECTICISM.

That form of philosophy which appeared about the beginning of the post-Aristotelian period had, in the course of the third and second centuries, perfected itself in its three principal branches. These three schools had hitherto existed side by side, each striving to maintain itself in its purity, and merely adopting towards the others, and towards the previous philosophy, an aggressive or defensive attitude. But it lies in the nature of things that mental tendencies, which have sprung from a kindred soil, cannot very long continue in this mutually exclusive position. The first founders of a school and their immediate successors, in the fervour of original enquiry, usually lay excessive weight upon that which is peculiar to their mode of thought; in their opponents they see only deviations from this their truth: later members, on the contrary, who have not sought this peculiar element with the same zeal, and therefor

Table of Contents

CONTENTS; CHAPTER 1; ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF ECLECTICISM; Gradual blending of the schools of philosophy: internal causes of this, 1 q External causes: diffusion of Creek philosophy among the Romans, 5 React ion of that diffusion upon philosophy, 14 Principle and character of eclectic philosophy, 17 Contained the germs of the later scejjticism, 21 ; and of Neo-Platonisrn, 22; CHAPTER II; ECLECTICISM IN THE SECOND AND FIRST CENTURIES BEFORE CHRIST-THE EPICUREANS-ASCLEPIADES; Relation of the later Epicureans to Epicurus, 21 Asclepi-ades of Pithy nia, 29 xtj; CHAPTER III; THE STOICS: BOKTI1US, PANiKTIUS, POSIDONIUS ; Successors of Chrysippus, 31 Poethus, ;]"> Pamctius, 31) Character of his philosophy, 12 Deviations from Stoicism, 13 Sfj Ethics, 17 ('ontemporaries and disciples of I'aiifcl ius, 52 Posidonius, 5(1 His philosophic tendencies, 5:> His anthropology 61 Other Stoics of the tirst c