Leon Robin - Greek Thought and the Origins of the Scientific Spirit

At the beginning of the present volume we may be permitted to observe that there is no history of the world in existence which gives to the history of ideas the place which it will have in this series or makes it so completely and profoundly a part of the history of man.

We are not speaking of the world-histories which present a positive character, for we have not forgotten that there are such, in which the Idea more than holds a great place in history, since it is given a priori as the very foundation of history. There are theologians who have known the designs of God, gesta Dei per homines, and metaphysicians who have constructed the philosophy of history dialectically, by the omnipotence of their Reason. But in this synthesis in which we gather together all explanatory factors, and try to credit each with its true share, our aim is to inquire what is the share, not of the Idea, but of pure ideas. Historical idealism must turn experimental. It must take root in positive psychology, to become exact and to ramify in the history of ideas. at the stage where, not content with thinking itself thought enjoys itself and expands in speculation which in appearance is wholly disinterested.

Now, the problem presented by the whole of the period of history which we have entered with Greece is twofold. For one thing, we have to inquire to what extent Thought, in the succession of time and in all the multitude of men, schools, and peoples who have speculated, possesses a unity, represents a logic. We must also inquire what active influence that pure thought hadto what extent the knowledge, to which it tended, transformed, with the conception of life, the conduct of men and the organization of societies.

Our own beliefand it is a hypothesis which animates this seriesis that there is a human Thought, that, in the millions of facets in which the Real is reflected throughout time and space, one single endeavour is being accomplished. And we believe that the power of ideas is immense, that even the most abstract ideas always have some secret relationship with life, some indirect action upon it, and that the search for truth, therefore, is essentially the task of man. To know is to adapt oneself with method.

But our admirable fellow-workers have not accepted any theoretical conditions and are not subject to any pressure. As this series develops, it will check experimentallylet us say it once againthe hypotheses which give the work its full import.

Now, Professor Robin is one of those historians of philosophy who, in the fullness of their knowledge, by the very suggestion of the subject which they are studying, have understood that philosophy cannot be shut off from life, but is connected with the fundamental needs of mankind. The practical and collective origins of thought are well brought out in the first chapters of his book.

Greek philosophy arises from morality and religion. Between the moral demands of common thought and the various views about the past or present history of the universe which religions beliefs contain on the one hand, and the original and free attempt of Greek thinkers to organize a system of reflections on the order of nature or on that of conduct" on the other, Professor Robin perceives a preliminary work of reflection on popular, spontaneous notions, by way of which reflection men advance from religion to philosophy. And. this work is a social thing he says. It is effected in an impersonal, obscure, continuous fashion, accompanying and expressing the progress of manners and religious sentiment and, likewise, of the craftsmanship which labours to master nature" (p. 17). So he distinguishes between three stages. After the common or collective thought of the beginning come a social" thought, which takes up results of that spontaneous creation, and then individual thought, which criticizes those results. With great discernment, he observes that moral reflection, in consequence of the demands of life lived in common, precedes reflection about nature, whereas critical reflection on the principles of conduct, on account of the same demands, only begins late.

In this evolution, it might, perhaps, be interesting to determine more exactly the part played by the individual and that played by the society, to make a clear distinction between the social and the collective.

Morality, without any doubt, answers to a need of the society. It is specifically and originally social. Yet it is only created by individuals, special beings, and especially thanks to certain individuals, who are social agents. In general, a society is made by individuals, and then it thinks itself in individuals, before being transformed by their criticism. But at no step in the social development, and particularly of the moral development, even when the work is anonymous, can one say absolutely that it is impersonal.

Still less can one say it of the work which culminates in a systematic view of the universe. Psychism develops in society, but it is anterior to societyit is even anterior to humanity. It is constituted in the brain of the individual. It is the most contingent part of the acquisitions and creations of the mind which is communicated and handed down; so a collective mentality, in the strict sense of the word, arises. But they also form a thread of logic, and that is human thought, the impersonal effort of the personality.

Regarding the earliest schools of Greek thinkers, Professor Robin says, For a long time the collective work of the association hid the personal contribution of individuals in an obscurity which the historian has great difficulty in piercing" (p. 34). This remark applies equally well, mutatis mutandis, to the earliest development of reflection and even to the spontaneous elaboration of morality and speculation on nature. If in the case of the old schools, a few great names, almost symbolical, emerge from the darkness, thesefor example, those of the Seven Sages, the list of whom is given variouslyseem to us not so much to sum up the efforts of groups as to assert individualities.