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Antisthenes and Diogenes of Sinope, in their outrages on society and their self-mortifications, show to what end a period of faith, unrestrained by reason, will come; and Epicurus demonstrated its tendency when guided by self. Thus closes the third period of Greek philosophical development.
Who can deny that the philosopher Antisthenes was right when he said, "The virtues of the man and the woman are the same"? Not the Christian, certainly; for he accepts as his highest standard the being who in all history best united the highest qualities of both sexes. Not the metaphysician; for his analysis deals with the human mind as such, not with the mind of either sex.
He, then, was entirely overcome by these emotions; and I too was troubled, as well as the others. Ech. But who were present, Phaedo? Phæd. Of his fellow-countrymen, this Apollodorus was present, and Critobulus, and his father Crito, moreover Hermogenes, Epigenes, Æschines, and Antisthenes; Ctesippus the Pæanian, Menexenus, and some other of his countrymen were also there: Plato I think was sick.
For Antisthenes, seeing the Athenians all in a tumult in the theatre, and justly, upon the pronunciation of this verse, presently subjoined this corrective, What's wrong is so, believe men what they will. And Cleanthes, hearing this passage concerning wealth: presently altered it thus: Great disadvantage oft attends on wealth; We purchase whores with't and destroy our health.
Anyone would be ridiculous who attempted to make laws for them: they would probably retort what, in the fable of Antisthenes, the lions said to the hares 'where are your claws? when in the council of the beasts the latter began haranguing and claiming equality for all.
Think of Antisthenes and his disciples, the dog-like Cynics think of the fools shut up in the temple of Serapis! Nothing is beautiful but what is free, and he only is not free who is forever striving to check his inclinations for the most part in vain in order to live, as feeble cowards deem virtuously, justly and truthfully.
For, if he judged himself to do nothing amiss when he followed sports and banquets, sure, we shall not do worse, if in whatever circumstances we follow the study of philosophy, or manage public affairs, or go to the market or to the Academy, or follow our husbandry. Wherefore those corrections also are not to be rejected which Cleanthes and Antisthenes have made use of.
As Antisthenes once said to Plato, "A horse I see, but 'horseness' I do not see." What the exact point of this criticism was we may reserve for the present. When Plato and other Athenian followers of Socrates thought well to quit Athens for a time after Socrates' execution, they were kindly entertained by Euclides at Megara.
He inveighed against the worship of images, too, and maintained that god “did not resemble any thing,” and we know that his school rejected all worship of the gods because the gods “were in need of nothing.” This conception, too, is presumably traceable to Antisthenes. In all this the theological interest is evident.
It was not said amiss by Antisthenes, when people told him that one Ismenias was an excellent piper, "It may be so," said he, "but he is but a wretched human being, otherwise he would not have been an excellent piper."
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