nt itself: some are relations _between_
sensible phenomena--relations of time, of place, of number, of
proportion, and of harmony; others are relations _of_ phenomena to
essential being--relations of qualities to substance, of becoming to
being, of the finite to the infinite. The former constituted the field
of Pythagorean the latter of Eleatic contemplation. The Pythagoreans
sought to explain the universe by numbers, forms, and harmonies; the
Eleatics by the _a priori_ ideas of unity, substance, Being _in se_, the
Infinite. Thus were constituted a _Mathematical_ and a _Metaphysical_
sect in the Italian school. The pre-Socratic schools may, therefore, be
tabulated in the following order:

I. IONIAN (Sensational), (1.) PHYSICAL {Dynamical or Vital.
{Mechanical.

II. Italian (Idealist), {(2.) MATHEMATICAL Pythagoreans.
{(3.) METAPHYSICAL Eleatics.

I. _The Ionian or Physical School._--We have premised that the
philosophers of this school attempted the explanation of the universe by
physical analogies.

One class of these early speculators, the _Dynamical_, or vital
theorists, proceeded on the supposition of a living energy infolded in
nature, which in its spontaneous development continuously undergoes
alteration both of quality and form. This imperfect analogy is the first
hypothesis of childhood. The child personifies the stone that hurts him,
and his first impulse is to resent the injury as though he imagined it
to be endowed with consciousness, and to be acting with design. The
childhood of superstition (whose genius is multiplicity) personifies
each individual existence--a rude Fetichism, which imagines a
supernatural power and presence enshrined in every object of nature, in
every plant, and stock, and stone. The childhood of philosophy (whose
genius is unity) personifies the universe. It regards the earth as one
vast organism, animated by one soul, and this soul of the world as a
"created god."[401] The first efforts of philosophy were, therefore,
simply an attempt to explain the universe in harmony with the popular
theological beliefs. The cosmogonies of the early speculators in the
Ionian school were an elaboration of the ancient theogonies, but still
an elaboration conducted under the guidance of that law of thought which
constrains man to seek for _unity_, and reduce the many to the one.

Therefore, in attempting to construct