Imago

Gomperz, Heinrich. Notes on the Psychology of the Greek Philosophers.

Giese, Fritz. Psychoanalysis and Applied Psychology.

Notes on the Psychology of Greek Philosophers. -From a detailed account of their lives and teachings the writer makes some observations upon the psychological make-up of Parmenides and Socrates. Of Parmenides' life little is known. He was born about 541 B.C. and was about forty-five years old when he wrote the didactic poem upon which his fame largely rests. Dr. Gomperz has translated into German the existing fragments of the poem and the summaries of the missing parts. From them he concludes that the masculine component was outstanding in Parmenides' character, and that he regarded the true and desirable woman as possessor of the most feminine traits. He believed woman to be more gifted mentally than man. In his poem, the beings who led Parmenides into the realm of light are the daughters of the sun, and she who shares complete knowledge with him is Hemera, the goddess of the day. The ruler of the universe is a goddess, as well as the personifications of abstractions, such as the Fates. The goddess who rules the world brings about birth and mating. This divinity is, accordingly, the goddess of love, who has replaced Zeus in Parmenides' cosmology. The only god whose name appears is one sanctioned by her, namely, Eros!

From these facts Dr. Gomperz deduces that for Parmenides the world was an incorporation of eroticism, directed toward the opposite sex. Moreover, he was not likely to have had a homosexual attachment to Zeno, as attributed to him. For him the perfect woman was a more gifted and more complete being than man, containing within her the principles of refinement, tenderness, light and understanding, in contrast to the male principles of strength, coarseness, darkness, misconception. From the union of these opposing principles arises life, and the instinct which draws them together is the supreme divinity.

This universe, so co