PHILOLAUS, a distinguished Pythagorean philosopher, born, according to some, at Crotona, according to others, at Tarentum, some time during the latter half of the fifth century B.C. He was instructed in philosophy by Aresas, and had for his disciples Simmius, Cebes, and Archytas, the friend of Plato, whom he taught at Thebes in Boeotia. Philolaus was the first who published a book on the Pythagorean doctrines, a treatise which Plato is said to have made use of in the composition of his Timæus. This work of the Pythagorean seems to have consisted of three books:—1. Containing a general account of the Origin and Arrangement of the Universe; 2. An Exposition of the Nature of Numbers; 3. On the Nature of the Soul. (See Fabricius' Bibliotheca Græca.) There is an edition of the fragments of Philolaus, by Böckh, 8vo, Berlin, 1819.
Definition. PHILOLOGY, in the usual and generally correct acceptance of the term, is a branch of study of which the object is some language and literature fixed in a permanent, if not unalterable form. The application, however, of the original word by the Greeks themselves is much wider and more general than this definition would imply; and modern scholars have endeavoured to claim for philology a distinct and important place among the highest and most systematic sciences. As common Greek terms, φιλολογία and φιλολογία denote merely a fondness for literature and literary discussion. In more than one passage Plato makes Socrates describe himself as φιλολόγος (Phaedr., p. 236 E.; Lach., p. 188 C.; Theat., 161 A., cf. 146 A.), meaning by this that he delighted not only in hearing speeches, but also in the dialectical argumentation which formed his chief employment; and the same great writer describes Athens in general as both φιλολόγος ("loving discourses"), and πολύλογος ("full of talk"), in contradistinction to Lacedæmon and Crete, which cultivated reflection rather than conversation. (Legg., p. 641 E.) A little later, a distinction was made between the more general sense in which philology could be predicated of all the Athenians as a national characteristic, and a more special application of the term; and Zenon contrasted those who were mere lovers of conversation with those who cultivated literature and philosophy as liberal studies, by calling the latter φιλολόγοι, but the former λογόφιλαι. (Stobæus, Serm. 36, 26, vol. ii., p. 40, Meineke; Ecl., vol. ii., p. 214, Heeren.) When philology had thus fixed itself as a word denoting liberal study, it soon became applicable to studies of a particular kind. And as philosophy denoted the whole compass of ancient learning,—that is, not only the investigation of nature and thought, but also the study of transmitted opinions and of the books by which they were conveyed,—philology was understood to signify the second part only of philosophy,—namely, all that referred to literature, language, and history. (See Wyttenbach on Plutarch de audiend. poet., p. 22 C., p. 226.) The first person who was called a philologist (φιλολόγος) in this sense was the great Eratosthenes (Sueton. de illustr. Gramm., c. 10), who, however, did not by any means relinquish the name or the functions of a philosopher, but laid claim especially to a combination of various departments of learning (multiplex variaque doctrina), which made him the "admirable Crichton" of his age. The same name, for the same reason, was bestowed upon Atticus (Sueton. u. s.) and Demetrius of Scepsis (Diog. Laert. v., § 84). And all these, with many others, regarded the possession of book-learning, which made man a philologist and polyhistor (πολύλογος; Vit. Arat. Phæn., p. 268, 11), or more generally a student (studiosus, Plin. Epist. iii. 3), as merely an adjunct to other accomplishments, or rather as a department of philosophy. In process of time, however, philosophy was limited to the investigation and discovery of physical and psychological facts; and then philology assumed a sort of antagonistic position in regard to that which was originally esteemed as merely a branch or department of the same manifestation of intellectual activity. Hence it was that Plotinus, whose literary qualifications were of a very humble order, described his eminent contemporary Longinus, who was emphatically a learned man (Eunapius, Porphyri., p. 13), and had written a book called The Philologists (ὁ φιλολόγος; see Ruhnken, Diss. de Long., § 10), as a philologist indeed, but in no sense a philosopher (Porphyry, Vit. Plotini, c. 14, p. lxiv., Creuzer). This opposition has been either accepted by those in modern times who have wished to claim for philology the most extensive province and the most exalted functions; or, allowing physio-
logy and philology to be still the two main branches of philosophy, they have assigned to the latter the duty of surveying all knowledge which is already placed on record; so that all human study is divided into two great departments,—the retrospective and the prospective, the known and the unknown. "It appears to me," says the enthusiastic disciple of W. von Humboldt (De Pronomine Relativo Commentatio Philosophico-Philologica, scripsit H. Steinthal, Berolini, 1847, pp. 4, 5), "that it is the business of the human understanding, or of literature in general, to comprehend those simple and absolute laws which appear in the world or in nature on the one hand, and in the history of the human race on the other hand. As, therefore, there are two forms of literature,—one, the history of nature, or physiology; the other, the history of the human mind,—philologists undertake the examination of all that the λόγος, or human reason, has produced. Now, whatever the human reason produces is some idea, something recognised and discerned by the mind, although it may be clothed in some outward form, whether it be a form of government constituted by human society; or some monument of hewn stone; or some type of mythology and religion; or some demonstrative result of philosophical acuteness; or some outpouring of poetical genius or oratorical eloquence. So that even the history of philology belongs to philology, with this limitation, that, e.g., the history of classical philology is the specialty of those who consider modern life from a philological point of view. Accordingly, the only true definition is Böckh's, that philology is the teaching and learning of that which is already discovered (philologiam esse cognitio cognitionem); which is not to be understood, as though philologists were always doing over again the work done to their hands; but all the products of the human mind which remain as recorded facts have to be submitted afresh to the crucible of human thought, to the end that, being recognised, not as the arbitrary acts of individuals, but as sprung from the necessary laws of minds individually free, they may be regarded as a mirror or picture of the human reason in general." This sweeping generalization, by claiming for philology a sovereignty over all that has received a literary expression,—everything, in fact, except the new discoveries which inductive science may make in the domain of visible nature,—virtually deprives the philologist of any definite functions, and almost makes his name co-extensive with that of studious and thinking man. Still, it contains the germs of the true definition of philology—a definition quite consistent with the popular acceptance of the term. For the opposition between discovery (inventio) and learning (cognitio), on which it rests, is really that which, in his own proper department, distinguishes the philologist from all others who claim the possession of a particular science,—namely, some branch of knowledge methodized and reduced to general laws and principles. The fact is, that philology always presumes, as the basis of its operations, some fixed form of language and literature. By the nature of the case, it deals with that which has been completed in the past, and is no longer liable to fluctuation and change. Living and contemporary literature may be criticised, but it cannot be a proper object of philology. No fixed conclusions can be drawn from that which is still in a state of transition. It follows therefore, that, as far as language and literature are concerned, philology is most truly defined as the science of investigating and learning that which is already before the world as an accomplished result of human intellect. And the Romans actually used this distinction to describe the contrast between the Greeks, who had furnished them with models of rhetoric and philosophy, and themselves, as the
Ancient Philology. intelligent inheritors of that transmitted wealth.—"Illis enim," says Quintilian (Inst. Orat. xii. 11, § 22), "hæc invenienda fuerunt, nobis cognoscenda sunt." The essential distinction, that philology deals only with a fixed and completed form of language and literature, leads to another limitation by which its province is more accurately defined. It not only does not deal with modern and living literature, but it does not even concern itself with those departments of criticism which are equally applicable to all forms of literature, whether modern or ancient. This removes from the province of philology many branches of study which the ancient φιλόσοφος claimed as his own, such as rhetoric, poetry, and the theory of taste. The philologist, in the full sense of the term, deals with ancient literature for the sake of language in general, which the fixed forms of an ancient idiom enable him to analyse according to methodical and scientific principles. With the literature itself the philologist, as such, is concerned chiefly as a verbal critic and interpreter. He undertakes to furnish the means by which the true reading may be ascertained and the intended significance elicited; and although a knowledge of many collateral subjects may be necessary to enable him to do this effectually, he regards these particulars as auxiliary matters only, and does not concern himself with the literary or philosophical results of his own criticisms so far as the subject-matter of his author is concerned. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, we are disposed to define philology as, in itself, the general name for a scientific inquiry into the principles of language. It deals at once with the theory of the origin and formation of words, and with the method of language, which treats of the formation of sentences. But whether we consider the origin of philology,—i.e., the circumstances under which such a branch of study has assumed a systematic form,—or the procedure by which it tests its conclusions and extends its field of research, we must consider it as dealing with some branch of literature, national or classic, which is no longer vague or floating; so that it includes all the higher applications of grammar, criticism, and exegesis. Again, when we regard the intimate connection between the mind of man and his spoken language, we cannot fail to see, that the highest philology must involve an investigation of the laws of thought, and so trench on the boundaries of psychology. Lastly, when we remember that language is the most ancient and the most trustworthy of pre-historical records, we shall not be surprised to find that philology constitutes one of the main ingredients in the new science of ethnography, or the history of the varieties of the human race, and that it has led to special investigations into the primitive condition and primitive religious belief of families of men long since divided by the inevitable process of emigration. In the following pages it is not our object to treat methodically of any branch or application of philology. It is sufficient that we should show how this science of language gradually developed itself; what it has achieved; and what it is still doing. With this view, we propose to discuss, in order, the establishment of a methodical and minute study of language on the basis of classical and sacred criticism, and the subsequent growth of comparative grammar, with its adjuncts—comparative history and mythology. The following will be the most convenient divisions of our subject:—(1.) Ancient Philology; (2.) Philology during the Middle Ages; (3.) Classical and Sacred Philology, after the revival of literature; (4.) Comparative Philology, with its various developments and applications in the present century.