The Sleepwalkers (27 page)

However,
even
if
European
philosophy
were
only
a
series
of
footnotes
to
Plato,
and
even
though
Aristotle
had
a
millennial
stranglehold
on
physics
and
astronomy,
their
influence,
when
all
is
said,
depended
not
so
much
on
the
originality
of
their
teaching,
as
on
a
process
of
natural
selection
in
the
evolution
of
ideas.
Out
of
a
number
of
ideological
mutations,
a
given
society
will
select
that
philosophy
which
it
unconsciously
feels
to
be
best
suited
for
its
need.
Each
time,
in
subsequent
centuries,
when
the
cultural
climate
changed
in
Europe,
the
twin
stars
also
changed
their
aspect
and
colour:
Augustine
and
Aquinas,
Erasmus
and
Kepler,
Descartes
and
Newton
each
read
a
different
message
in
them.
Not
only
did
the
ambiguities
and
contradictions
in
Plato,
the
dialectical
twists
in
Aristotle,
admit
a
wide
range
of
interpretations
and
shifts
of
emphasis;
but,
by
taking
the
two
jointly
or
in
alternation,
by
combining
selected
facets
of
each,
the
total
effect
could
virtually
be
reversed;
we
shall
see
that
the
"New
Platonism"
of
the
sixteenth
century
was
in
most
respects
the
opposite
of
the
Neoplatonism
of
the
early
Middle
Ages.

In
this
context
I
must
briefly
return
to
Plato's
loathing
for
change
–
for
"generation
and
decay"
–
which
made
the
sublunary
sphere
such
a
disreputable
slum-district
of
the
universe.

Aristotle
himself
did
not
share
this
loathing.
As
a
keen
biologist,
he
regarded
all
change,
all
movement
in
nature
as
purposeful
and
goal-directed
–
even
the
motions
of
inanimate
bodies:
a
stone
will
fall
to
the
earth,
as
a
horse
will
canter
to
its
stable,
because
that
is
its
"natural
place"
in
the
universal
hierarchy.
We
shall
have
occasion,
later
on,
to
marvel
at
the
disastrous
effects
of
this
Aristotelian
brainwave
on
the
course
of
European
science;
at
the
moment,
I
merely
wish
to
point
out
that
Aristotle's
attitude
to
Change,
though
he
rejects
evolution
and
progress,
is
not
quite
as
defeatist
as
Plato's.
¹⁴
Yet
Neoplatonism,
in
its
dominant
trend,
ignores
Aristotle's
dissent
on
this
essential
point,
and
manages
to
make
the
worst
of
both
worlds.
It
adopts
the
Aristotelian
scheme
of
the
universe,
but
makes
the
sub-lunary
sphere
a
Platonic
vale
of
shadows;
it
follows
the
Platonic
doctrine
of
the
natural
world
as
a
dim
copy
of
ideal
Forms
–
which
Aristotle
rejected
–
yet
follows
Aristotle
in
placing
the
Prime
Mover
outside
the
confines
of
the
world.
It
follows
both
in
their
anxious
effort
to
build
a
walled-in
universe,
protected
against
the
Barbarian
incursions
of
Change;
a
nest
of
spheres-within-spheres,
eternally
revolving
in
themselves,
yet
remaining
in
the
same
place;
thus
hiding
its
one
shameful
secret,
that
centre
of
infection,
safely
isolated
in
the
sub-lunary
quarantine.

In
the
immortal
parable
of
the
Cave,
where
men
stand
in
their
chains
backs
to
the
light,
perceiving
only
the
play
of
shadows
on
the
wall,
unaware
that
these
are
but
shadows,
unaware
of
the
luminous
reality
outside
the
Cave
–
in
this
allegory
of
the
human
condition,
Plato
hit
an
archetypal
chord
as
pregnant
with
echoes
as
Pythagoras'
Harmony
of
the
Spheres.
But
when
we
think
of
Neoplatonism
and
Scholasticism
as
concrete
philosophies
and
precepts
of
life,
we
may
be
tempted
to
reverse
the
game,
and
to
paint
a
picture
of
the
founders
of
the
Academy
and
the
Lyceum
as
two
frightened
men
standing
in
the
self-same
Cave,
facing
the
wall,
chained
to
their
places
in
a
catastrophic
age,
turning
their
backs
on
the
flame
of
Greece's
heroic
era,
and
throwing
grotesque
shadows
which
are
to
haunt
mankind
for
a
thousand
years
and
more.

V THE
DIVORCE
FROM
REALITY

1.
Spheres Within Spheres (Eudoxus)

IN
a
closed
universe,
where
the
fixed
stars
offered
as
yet
no
specific
problems,
the
challenge
to
understanding
came
from
the
planets;
the
chief
task
of
cosmology
was
to
devise
a
system
which
explained
how
sun,
moon
and
the
remaining
five
planets
moved.

This
task
was
further
narrowed
down
when
Plato's
dictum
that
all
heavenly
bodies
move
in
perfect
circles,
became
the
first
Academic
dogma
in
the
first
institution
that
bore
that
solemn
name.
The
task
of
Academic
astronomy
was
now
to
prove
that
the
apparently
irregular
meanderings
of
the
planets
were
the
result
of
some
combination
of
several
simple,
circular,
uniform
motions.