Diogenes of Sinope. The first theriophilist of impor-
tance is Diogenes of Sinope (ca. 412-323 B.C.), the
famous Cynic (from κύων, κυνός, “dog”). Diogenes was
looking for an exemplar of the life according to nature,
something that his contemporaries had often found in
savages. But animals seemed even more natural than
Scythians or Ethiopians; for human beings, in whatever
state they might be found, were after all living in a
society controlled by law and law was a human, not
a natural, invention. “Natural” to the Cynic meant that
which was untouched or, as he would say, uncorrupted
by art. But almost every act of a man was changed
by invention, technique, artificiality. Diogenes seeing
a dog drinking by lapping up water from a puddle,
saw that cups were a superfluity. He threw away his
cup. He saw that the beasts wore no clothing except
their fur or feathers; why then should a man need more
than a rag or two to shield him from the rain and cold?
Diogenes wrapped a coarse cloth round his body; it
became known as the
tribon or philosopher's cloak.
Again, the beasts had no houses and were satisfied with
dens in the ground or a cave; Diogenes crept into a
wine jar. The beasts had no regulations for eating or
copulation; they simply satisfied their innate appetites.
Why should a man do differently? The beasts ate their
food raw; why then cook? Polygamy, incest, can-
nibalism are wrongly censured; they all follow from
natural habits and should be adopted rather than
rejected.
None of this tended to show that the animals were
rational, and indeed, as far as the Cynics were con-
cerned, reason was of doubtful value. Instinct was more
natural than reason and if one were seeking the life
according to nature, then one would follow instinct
and “divorce old barren reason from his bed.” Follow-
ing the animals, moreover, increased one's autonomy,
one's autarky, that goal which the Greek ethicists
strove to reach: to be free of all claims made by any-
thing external to one's self. One became self-dependent
and never dependent on externals. By abandoning
family ties, social relations, political duties, and all the
delights that come from one form or another of artistry,
one became completely free and at the same time close
to the animal.
