Xenocrates

“ Of Xenocrates's logic we know only that with Plato he distinguished τὸ καθ’ αὑτό and τὸ πρός τι, rejecting the Aristotelian list of ten categories as a superfluity.
Valuing philosophy chiefly for its influence upon conduct, Xenocrates bestowed especial attention upon ethics. The catalogue of his works shows that he had written largely upon this subject; but the indications of doctrine which have survived are scanty, and may be summed up in a few sentences. Things are goods, ills or neutrals. Goods are of three sorts—mental, bodily, external ”

“ So Phocion returned to Thebes with the other ambassadors, and among the rest, Xenocrates, the philosopher, the reputation of whose virtue and wisdom was so great and famous everywhere, that they conceived there could not be any pride, cruelty, or anger arising in the heart of man, which would not at the mere sight of him be subdued into something of reverence and admiration. ”

“ A good education alters the judgment and manners; as it happened to Polemon, a lewd and debauched young Greek, who going by chance to hear one of Xenocrates' lectures, did not only observe the eloquence and learning of the reader, and not only brought away, the knowledge of some fine matter, but a more manifest and more solid profit, which was the sudden change and reformation of his former life. ”

“ And, accordingly, as Plato often used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was thought to show more than ordinary harshness of disposition, "I pray you, good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces"; ”

“ Xenocrates, who succeeded Speusippus as president of the Academy about 340 B.C., was a native of Chalcedon, a city on the shores of the Bosporus. He was born in 396. In early life he came to Athens, and attached himself to Plato. Like Speusippus, he accompanied the philosopher on one of his visits to Syracuse. After Plato's death, Xenocrates went, in company with Aristotle, to the court of Hermias, the ruler of Atarneus, in Mysia, a province of Asia Minor. ”

“ When bantered by Bion, he said he would make no reply. For neither, said he, does tragedy deign to answer the banter of comedy. To some one who had never learnt either music or geometry or astronomy, but nevertheless wished to attend his lectures, Xenocrates said, "Go your ways, for you offer philosophy nothing to lay hold of." Others report him as saying, "It is not to me that you come for the carding of a fleece."
11. When Dionysius told Plato that he would lose his head, Xenocrates, who was present, pointed to his own and added, "No man shall touch it till he cut off mine." ”

“ The story goes, that when Lycurgus the orator had rescued Xenocrates the philosopher from the collectors who were hurrying him away to prison for non-payment of the alien tax, and had them punished for the license they had been guilty of, Xenocrates afterwards meeting the children of Lycurgus, "My sons," said he, "I am nobly repaying your father for his kindness; he has the praises of the whole people in return for it." But the returns which attended Titus Quintius and the Romans, for their beneficence to the Greeks, terminated not in empty praises only ”

“ Xenocrates, an ancient philosopher and a disciple of Plato, born in Chalcedon, and a successor of Plato's in the Academy as head of it; d. 314 B.C.
Xenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, born in Asia Minor; was the first to enunciate the doctrine “all is one,” but “without specifying,” says Schwegler, “whether this unity was intellectual or moral.... Aristotle says he called God the one.” See Eleatics.
Xenophon, historian, philosopher, and military commander, born at Athens, son of an Athenian of good position; was a pupil and friend of Socrates ”

“ And who will not agree that he who burst, accompanied with a flute-player and a party of revellers, his profligate associates, into the school of the venerable Xenocrates, to insult a man who was the admiration of his friends, was not one of the greatest miscreants [2] among mankind? ”

“ There have been six other men named Xenocrates: (1) a tactician in very ancient times; (2) the kinsman and fellow-citizen of the philosopher: a speech by him is extant entitled the Arsinoëtic, treating of a certain deceased Arsinoë; [12] (4) a philosopher and not very successful writer of elegies; it is a remarkable fact that poets succeed when they undertake to write prose, but prose-writers who essay poetry come to grief; whereby it is clear that the one is a gift of nature and the other of art ”

“ But Xenocrates knew not the fellow's true character; we on the other 262hand very often when we know that such and such men are bad, yet give them testimonials and money, doing ourselves injury, and not getting any pleasure for it, as people do get in the company of whores and flatterers, but being vexed and disgusted at the importunity that has upset and forced our reason. ”

“ There is a story that, when he was sent, along with others also, on an embassy to Philip, his colleagues, being bribed, accepted Philip's invitations to feasts and talked with him. Xenocrates did neither the one nor the other. Indeed on this account Philip declined to see him. 9. Hence, when the envoys returned to Athens, they complained that Xenocrates had accompanied them without rendering any service. Thereupon the people were ready to fine him. ”

“ And Xenocrates may have felt something of the same kind on his own account. Accordingly, the two left Athens together. Aristotle had more than one reason for selecting Atarneus as his new place of abode. It was the home of Proxenus, his guardian, of whom mention has already been made; and it was ruled over by Hermeias, an enlightened prince, with whom both Aristotle and Xenocrates had had the opportunity of forming a philosophic friendship. ”

“ The book was written by Xenophon; and the merchant was so pleased and captivated by the eloquence and beauties of the philosopher, that from that time he renounced the pursuits of a busy life, and applied himself to the study of philosophy. Ten years were spent in frequenting the school of Crates, and the same number under Stilpo, Xenocrates, and Polemon. Perfect in every branch of knowledge, and improved from experience as well as observation, Zeno opened a school at Athens, and soon saw himself attended by the great, the learned, and the powerful. ”

“ His words were entirely worthy of credit, so much so that, although it was illegal for witnesses to give evidence unsworn, the Athenians allowed Xenocrates alone to do so. 8. Furthermore, he was extremely independent; at all events, when Alexander sent him a large sum of money, he took three thousand Attic drachmas and sent back the rest to Alexander, whose needs, he said, were greater than his own, because he had a greater number of people to keep. ”

“ Xenocrates also is of the opinion that such days as are days of ill omen, and such festivals as have associated with them either beatings or lamentations or fastings or scurrilous language or ribald jests have no relation to the honours paid to the gods or to worthy demigods, but he believes that there exist in the space about us certain great and powerful natures, obdurate, however, and morose, which take pleasure in such things as these, and, if they succeed in obtaining them, resort to nothing worse. ”

“ In his ontology Xenocrates built upon Plato's foundations: that is to say, with Plato he postulated ideas or numbers to be the causes of nature's organic products, and derived these ideas or numbers from unity (which is active) and plurality (which is passive) . But he put upon this fundamental dogma a new interpretation. According to Plato, existence is mind pluralized: mind as a unity, i.e. universal mind, apprehends its own plurality as eternal, immutable, intelligible ideas; and mind as a plurality, i.e. particular mind, perceives its own plurality as transitory, mutable, sensible things. ”

“ Xenocrates believed in the existence of a series of strong and powerful beings which take pleasure in scourgings and fastings, &c. Hesiod speaks of "holy daemons" (Works and Days, 126) and "guardians of mankind," and "bestowers of wealth," and these are regarded by Plato as a "middle order of beings between the gods and men, interpreters of the wills of the gods to men, and ministering to their wants, carrying the prayers and supplications of mortals to heaven, and bringing down thence in return oracles and all other blessings of life." ”

“ The philosopher is manifest in this, that he dissevers the soul from communion with the body. Love, says Jerome, the knowledge of the scriptures, and thou wilt not love the vices of the flesh. The godlike Xenocrates showed this by the firmness of his reason, who was declared by the famous hetæra Phryne to be a statue and not a man, when all her blandishments could not shake his resolve, as Valerius Maximus relates at length. ”

“ Finding that his old friend, Xenocrates, was director of the school in the Academy, he established himself, as a public teacher or professor, in the Lyceum, the Periclean gymnasium, used chiefly, it should seem, by the lower classes and by foreign residents, of whom he himself was one. As an alien, as the friend of the victorious Macedonians, who three years before had broken the power of Greece at Chæronea, and taken away her autonomy forever, as a rival of the Platonists, and as a wealthy, well-dressed gentleman, he had many enemies and detractors ”

“ And yet I cannot see that there was any other possible solution of the problem which ancient popular belief set ancient philosophy, if, be it understood, we hold fast by two hypotheses: the first, that the popular belief and worship of the ancients was based throughout on a foundation of reality; and second, that moral perfection is an essential factor in the conception of God. The only inconsistency which we may perhaps bring home to Xenocrates is that he retained certain of the popular names of the gods as designations for gods in his sense ”

“ For who would wrong or injure a man that is so sweetly and humanly disposed with respect to the ills of strangers that are not of his kind? I remember that three days ago, as I was discoursing, I made mention of a saying of Xenocrates, and how the Athenians gave judgment upon a certain person who had flayed a living ram. ”

“ Aristotle, Xenocrates, and all that school, will not grant it; inasmuch as they call health, strength, riches, glory, and many other things good, but not praiseworthy; and they therefore do not think that the chief good is contained in virtue alone, though still they do prefer virtue to everything else. What do you think that those men will do who have utterly separated virtue from the chief good, Epicurus, Hieronymus, and those too, if indeed there are any such, who wish to defend the definition of the chief good given by Carneades? ”

“ Xenocrates said—and we shall do well to keep the remark in mind—that whether we set foot or set eyes in another man’s house makes no difference. Not only is such prying unfair and improper; we get no pleasure from the spectacle.
Unsightly, stranger, are the sights within, is a saying which is generally true of what we see inside—a litter of pots and pans, or servant-girls sitting about, but nothing of |B| any importance or interest. ”

“ But, upon the whole, that he was rather a popular man, or more correctly, an extremely popular man, in Athens, during a long lifetime, notwithstanding the catastrophe of the hemlock, seems pretty plain both from Xenophon and Plato. This popularity, in the face of what certainly was a rather odious mission, arose both from the kindly sympathetic nature of the man, and from the admirable tact which the philosopher constantly displayed in dealing {54} with those whom he submitted to the operation of his ethical probe. ”

“ This fine presentation of household economy, like that of the German poet, is, unhappily, only a dialogue of fiction. It was merely Xenophon's conception of the manner in which a philosopher of prodigious wisdom might deal with a girl of fifteen, whom he had married without having enjoyed the pleasure of a previous acquaintance with her. Doubtless there was here and there in ancient Greece a couple who succeeded in approximating Xenophon's ideal.
Among the Romans women began to acquire those legal "rights" to which they owe whatever advance they have ever made toward a just equality with men. ”

“ It is noticeable that Xenophon, the loyal disciple and biographer of Socrates, himself of the best type of orthodox piety, and zealous to vindicate his master from the charge of irreligion,—Xenophon, in all the story of the master's life and death, gives not a hint of any future hope. But Plato developed the idea that in man there resides an essential, indestructible principle, superior to the physical frame which is its home and may be either its servant or master—a principle which manifests itself in thought, aspiration, virtue; which has existed before the body and will exist after it ”

“ What, then, I venture to assert is, that the People of Athens has no difficulty in recognising which of its citizens are of the better sort and which the opposite. (26) And so recognising those who are serviceable and advantageous (27) to itself, even though they be base, the People loves them; but the good folk they are disposed rather to hate. This virtue of theirs, the People holds, is not engrained in their nature for any good to itself, but rather for its injury. ”

“ In his versatile intelligence, his cosmopolitan habits as a soldier of fortune, in his youthful enthusiasm for philosophy, and in the journalistic spirit which prompted him to write pamphlets on any topic which interested him, no less than in his dislike of democracy, Xenophon is perhaps the most characteristic figure of the fourth century, though he is too military and too conservative to be a typical Athenian of any age. ”

“ The splendour of the entertainment shall be much enhanced, I need not tell you, if my hall [13] should happily be graced by worthies like yourselves, who have attained to purity of soul, [14] rather than by generals and cavalry commanders [15] and a crowd of place-hunters. [16]
Whereat Socrates: When will you have done with your gibes, Callias? Why, because you have yourself spent sums of money on Protagoras, [17] and Gorgias, and Prodicus, and a host of others, to learn wisdom, must you pour contempt on us poor fellows, who are but self-taught tinkers [18] in philosophy compared with you? ”