IONIC PHILOSOPHERS, the earliest among the Greek schools of philosophy. Speculation arose in Greece, as elsewhere, in the attempt to discover the laws of outward phenomena-, and the origin and successive stages of the world's develop ment. Such an attempt, it is needless to say, must at first have been extremely rude. To the student of philosophical literature, however, no such undertaking, however unsuccessful. can possibly be otherwise than interesting ; and in this instance in particular we are able to dis cover the manifest traces of that liveli ness of thought and systematic spirit which distinguish the later Greek specu lations. The fathers of the Ionic school were Thales andhis disciple Anaximenes. They were succeeded in the same line of thought by Diogenes of Apollonia, and Hernelitus of Ephesus. The character istic mark which distinguishes the specu lations of these thinkers is the endeavor to refer all sensible things to one origi nal principle in nature. The two first named were satisfied with a very simple solution •sf the problem. Water with the one, and air with the other, were made the original materials out of which all things arose, and into which they were finally resolved. In their successors the germs of a more philosophical doctrine are apparent. They retain, indeed, the simplicity of an original element ; but the air of Diogenes and the _lire of Ile raelitus are apparently only sensible symbols which they used only in order to present more vividly to the imagination the energy of the one vital principle which is the ground of all outward ap pearances. It would indeed be a mistake
to regard these philosophers as material ists. The distinction between objective and subjective, between a lair operating in the universe, and the corresponding apprehension of that law by reason, how ever obvious it may seem at the pres ent day, seems to have required the deep meditation of numerous powerful think ers to bring it into clear consciousness. But we meet also with a class of thinkers in whom the contrary tendency prevail ed. Anaximander (e.c. 590) and Anax agoras. the master of Pericles, agree in this respect, that they consider the world to be made up of numberless small particles, of different kinds and of various shapes, by the change in whose relative position all phenomena are to be account ed for. This hypothesis is combined by Anaxagoras with a Supreme Reason, the author of all that is regular and harmo nious in the disposition of these element ary atoms. Anaxagoras may indeed be considered as the first philosopher who clearly and broadly stated the leading distinctions between mind and matter.