Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Volume 3/Xenophanes

by James Frederick Ferrier

XENOPHANES, an early Greek philosopher, was a native of Colophon, an Ionic city in Asia Minor. He was born probably about 590, and died about 500 b.c. When he was grown to manhood Colophon fell under the subjection of the Lydians, whose luxury and corrupt morals so much disgusted him that he left the place, and took refuge in the recently founded colony of Elea in Southern Italy. Here he founded the Eleatic school of philosophy, the reputation of which was upheld and increased by his successors, Parmenides and Zeno. At this time the art of prose-writing had not begun to be cultivated. The opinions of Xenophanes were accordingly delivered in verse. He seems to have been a composer and reciter of various kinds of poetry, some fragments of which are extant. These relics have been collected, along with those of Parmenides and some other early philosophers, by Karsten, a Dutch scholar, and were published by him in 1830. The doctrines of Xenophanes were rather theological than philosophical. One of his principal aims was to disabuse the minds of his countrymen of the absurd ideas about the gods, which had been instilled into them by the poems of Homer and Hesiod. He proclaims a pure monotheism, and severely condemns the creed which holds that God is fashioned after the likeness of man. "Men," he says, "imagine that the gods are born, and are endowed with our form and figure. But if oxen and lions had hands, and could paint and mould things as men do, they, too, would form the gods after their own similitude—horses making them like horses, and oxen like oxen." In order to speak intelligibly of the speculations of Xenophanes, it is necessary to keep in view the kind of truth which philosophy strives to reach and give expression to. The only kind of truth which philosophy recognizes, is truth as it exists for all intellect. Truth, as it presents itself to this or that peculiar order of intellect, is not the aim of philosophy—is not truth at all in the strict sense of the word. Hence sensible knowledge is not true knowledge, for it is not universally valid: the senses may be organs of human cognition merely. The senses show us things in their diversity; and this diversity will vary with every variation in the senses. But there is a unity in things as well as a diversity; if they are πολλά, they are likewise ἑν; and this unity is apprehended not by sense, but by pure intellect. There is thus something which is common to all things, and this which is common to all things is apprehended by something common to all intellects. An intelligence need not of necessity apprehend the universe as coloured, or sonorous, or solid, but it must of necessity apprehend it as one—as held together by some principle of unity. Xenophanes was the first who proclaimed the oneness of the universe; and Aristotle says, that "looking forth over the expanded world, Xenophanes declared that the one in all things was God." His successors, Parmenides and Zeno, argued for "Being" as the real and permanent in all things, i.e., as the truth for all intellect, while they regarded change (the phenomena of sense) as unreal and elusory. The philosophy of Xenophanes and his followers is valuable as an effort to raise speculation from the region of sense into that of intellect, and to show that the objects of reason are more real and significant than those of the senses.—J. F. F.